Man, Our Lives Are Weird
by Rae Roberts
Summary: AU based on Season 7:13 The Slice Girls. Dean's one night stand with an Amazon results in a crazy, man-killing daughter. But what if Emma was sincere? This is what I imagine might have happened. Loosely follows the general plotline of Season 7. Gen fic, rated for violence, not smut.
1. Chapter 1

The carpet on the stair treads was threadbare and dirty. Emma touched the railing briefly, then pulled her hand away. The worn wood was coated with a thick patina of grunge. This was nothing like her mother's house. Nothing like the building where she'd undergone training and endured her first initiations. Those ancient, brutal rites, shrouded in the trappings of luxury: sparkling crystal chandeliers, fine-veined marble, wood polished to a mirror shine, lush Persian carpets. The hotel stairwell smelled of stale cigarette smoke and piss. Nothing, Emma imagined, like the houses and apartments of the other girls' fathers.

Because her father wasn't a doctor or an attorney, or an investment banker like her mother had believed him to be. Her father was a hunter. A vigilante. An enemy of the tribe. Armed, aware of what he was up against, and therefore dangerous. Very dangerous. The matrons had warned her. Her final initiation would be more than the usual challenge. Emma knew the tactics she must use. Take full advantage of the element of surprise. Break down the door. Strike without hesitation. Kill him, quickly, before he had the chance to kill her.

She was prepared. She'd waited and watched, as she'd been trained. The other hunter, her father's brother, had driven off. Her father would be alone in the dingy hotel room. It was time. Her footfalls were silent on the stained and smelly carpet of the hallway. The door, when she reached it, was marred with scuffs and scratches. Emma swallowed hard. She reached inside her jacket and touched the handle of the knife concealed in her sleeve. Reassured by the heft of the weapon, she took a deep breath and knocked lightly.

No response. Emma knocked again. The seconds passed, marked by the throb of her heart. Too much time, she thought. He was already suspicious.

"Hi. You don't know me," she greeted when the door finally opened, "but my name is Emma." He didn't answer, didn't question the presence of a teenage girl alone in a fleabag hotel in a rough neighborhood late at night, just looked at her. Emma's pulse sped up in spite of her stern warning to herself: control.

"I need your help," she rushed on, words she'd rehearsed since the car had dropped her off a block from the hotel. "I think I'm in trouble, and you're the only person I can trust."

"Why?"

"Because you're my father."

"How'd you find me?" Dean fired back. He was calm. No, more than calm. Cold. It didn't faze him, facing the child he'd fathered just days before. No, not a child. A monster, Emma thought. That's all she was to him, another monster to be hunted. Somehow, the notion calmed her. She could be cold, too. She was no helpless child. She was a warrior, trained to endure pain. To inflict it, if necessary.

"They've been watching you," she explained, "ever since Mom got pregnant."

"Well, if you're such a prisoner," Dean retorted, "you mind telling me how you escaped?"

The question was unexpected. For all his suspicion, he didn't know she was there with the tribe's blessing. Emma felt a sudden urge to laugh. Telling him she was there to kill him seemed like a bad idea.

"I waited until lights out. The women who watch over us change shifts a little after ten," Emma improvised.

"Uh-huh. And you left because…" Dean left the words hanging, a clear invitation to explain herself.

"They stick you in there, and you trust them. It's all you know. And you don't question what they want you to do," she told him, earnest. "Terrible things. That's why I had to leave. They tortured me," Emma went on, holding up her arm for his inspection. The wound was still raw, the mark of the tribe red and angry-looking on her slender wrist.

"They told me I had to endure pain so I could be strong like them. But I don't want to be like them," she insisted.

"Okay," Dean relented. "Come on in."

She followed him into the room, pulling her pink overnight bag behind her. Emma looked around, eyes taking in the peeling wallpaper, the decrepit furniture, the clutter of books and papers, but none of it really registered. The man locking the door behind them was her father, the same man who'd visited her mother the day before, who'd smiled and spoken to her, not knowing who she was. He looked very different now, in blue-collar clothes instead of a suit, cold and suspicious instead of charming. The calm she'd drawn upon as she'd stood at the door was quickly being depleted. This man wasn't family. This place wasn't home. Home was with her mother and the rest of the tribe.

But to take her rightful place with the Amazons, she'd have to kill him.

"Have a seat," Dean offered. To Emma's ears, it sounded like a command. She sat down on the end of one of the beds.

"Okay," he went on. "Let's assume that you're not..." He hesitated.

A monster, Emma thought.

"Like them," Dean concluded. "Yet." He leaned against the table, where every scrap of lore that could possibly pertain to Amazons had been stacked in a haphazard pile.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get me away from here," Emma said, pleading now. "You're a good man. My mother told me that," she offered, improvising again. She realized her mistake as soon as she'd voiced the words. He didn't warm to her at the flattery. If anything, he seemed even more suspicious.

"I seriously doubt she said that. And if you knew me, you would seriously doubt it's true."

Emma pondered that. The matrons of the tribe had warned her. Dean Winchester and his brother were dangerous. But were they really criminals? Mother Charlene had told her that they were, and she should know; she was a police officer. And, Emma thought, a murderer, like all the other members of the tribe. Was her father any different? She had to believe that he was.

"You're right," she admitted. "They told me you were a bad man. A hunter. So maybe you'll understand about me. Maybe you can protect me. Just long enough so I can get away. Then I'll leave you alone," Emma promised, her hopes fading. "I know you don't want me," she added, trying to resign herself. To her surprise, however, the words seemed to crack his cold facade.

"All right, let's not... go there, okay? This isn't a matter of…" Dean gestured, seemingly unable to find the right words. "You get this isn't a normal situation, right?"

"How would I know?" Emma's voice broke. "Three days ago, I wasn't even alive. Now here I am. My mother threw me into that place. And my father... well…" She hesitated, battling the hot, shameful prickling of tears. Amazons were warriors. Proud and strong. They didn't cry. Defiant, Emma refused to allow the gathering tears to fall.

"You get this is my last chance to have anything normal ever, right?" she demanded sharply, drawing on anger and frustration to block out the hopelessness and fear as her father stood and walked to the window. Emma felt the blade of her hidden knife, warmed by the heat of her body, smooth against her skin. For one desperate instant she thought of drawing it, leaping across the room, stabbing it between his shoulders as he looked down at the street. Then he turned back to her and the moment passed.

"You look exhausted," he told her.

"And starving," she accused, though it wasn't his fault. "It's been a tough sweet sixteen. So you believe me?" She'd just given serious thought to killing him. It wouldn't be surprising if he'd thought of doing the same to her. But he folded his arms and nodded.

"You'll help me?" Emma asked, hating her vulnerability, but unable to stop herself from blurting out the question. Her father watched her, arms crossed, his expression considering.

"If you really want help."

Emma hesitated. He still didn't believe her. She felt the reassuring weight of the weapon concealed in her sleeve, her guilty secret. She opened her mouth, then shut it, unable to think of anything more to say to convince him. Slowly, she returned his nod.

"Well, now, what happens when they find out you're missing?"

"They may have already found out." How long had she been in the hotel? How long did it generally take to kill a man? To carve the sigil and collect the trophies?

"And they'll hunt me down," Emma said with conviction. Her father nodded again and crossed to the grimy kitchenette.

"Look, I know this is going to be hard, but if I'm going to get out, I have to do it now," she urged as he opened the refrigerator.

"We got cheese and a leftover burrito," Dean announced just as the door to the room slammed open. He whirled at the sound, drawing his gun.

Sam stood in the doorway, pointing his own gun at Emma, who leapt to her feet, the knife dropping from her sleeve into her hand. She dropped smoothly into a fighting stance, as she'd been trained. Her eyes flared, becoming inhuman, the skin around them glowing red, pupils dilating. But he didn't shoot. Instead, her father's brother stood still, though poised to attack. Watchful. Waiting. Emma forced herself to regain control. Pointedly ignoring the big hunter in the doorway, she turned to face Dean, still on her guard.

"You were asking if I believed you," he said quietly. Once he'd registered who had just broken into the room, Dean aimed his gun away from Sam, pointing it unwaveringly at Emma instead. No hurt, she thought. No surprise. He'd been expecting her to turn on him all along.

"They said you'd be a challenge. You already knew about me...what I am. I couldn't just walk in unarmed and beg you to help me," Emma insisted. Her voice quavered in spite of her effort to keep it steady.

"I figured you'd chat me up... try and catch me off guard. Almost worked," Dean said dryly. "I was expecting your mother."

"Turns out, it's the daughters," Sam interjected. "She was going to kill you. Her final initiation into the tribe."

"She hasn't killed anybody yet," Dean replied. He took his aim off Emma, slowly setting the pistol on the table. "And she's not going to, are you, Emma? Put the knife down."

"Dean!" Sam gave his brother an incredulous look. He kept his gun trained on its target. Emma looked from one Winchester to the other. Her fingers flexed on the knife.

"Please don't let him hurt me."

"Nobody's going to hurt you-" Dean began, but Sam interrupted, furious.

"What did you say to me, when I was the one who choked? What did you say about Amy?" His voice rose. "'You kill the monster!'"

"No!" Dean shouted. Then, in a more normal tone of voice, he went on. "Sammy, look at her. She's not a monster. Not yet. She's just a kid."

"No," Sam insisted. "Look, man, I know what you must be thinking. But she's not yours. Not really."

"Actually, she is, really. Put the gun down, Sam. Everybody," he demanded, turning to Emma. "Everybody just… just stand down. We can figure this out."

Sam shot Dean a look of pure exasperation, but slowly lowered his gun. Emma reluctantly eased into a less combative stance, lowering the long-bladed knife incrementally. She looked back to Dean again, locking eyes with her father. He knew what she was, and yet, Emma thought, he was defending her. She hadn't been able to convince him with words, but maybe she could prove herself with actions. She turned the point of the knife toward herself, balancing the weapon along her forearm. Emma offered the knife, hilt-first, to her father. Dean's eyebrows rose at the archaic, oddly formal gesture.

"Thank you," he said gruffly, taking it.

Sam waited until Emma surrendered the knife before tucking his pistol into the back of his waistband. He watched the teenager, clearly distrustful. Emma felt a surge of nausea, her body reacting to the emotion of the past few minutes. Her legs felt weak. Before her knees could buckle, she sat back down on the bed.

"You're making a mistake, Dean." Standing over Emma, the brothers exchanged a long look.

"Maybe I am. But I can't just gank her," Dean retorted, his voice harsh. "And I can't let you do it, either, Sammy," he hurried on, anticipating his brother's next words. "I get you, Sam. I do. I could be wrong about the kid. Hell, I probably am wrong. But we have to give her a chance."

Sam looked at the girl, sitting slouched and unresponsive even as they discussed killing her. Monster or not, she wasn't posing a threat at the moment. She looked small and vulnerable. He spread his hands, momentarily defeated, but the glare he gave Dean made it clear the subject was far from closed.

"All right. Let's get out of here, stash the-" Sam paused, at a loss for words. He gestured at Emma.

"Stash her someplace safe," he went on sourly. "Then we go back to the 'mother ship' and take out the rest of the tribe. Unless this sudden sympathy for monsters extends to your new in-laws?"

Dean glowered but let the sarcastic query slide. Swiftly, he began boxing up the scattering of books and loose papers, first making sure Bobby's flask was secure inside his pocket. Within minutes, the Buick Riviera pulled away from the hotel and drove off, a new passenger in the back seat.


	2. Chapter 2

"You know I wanted to take out the rest of the tribe as bad as you did," Dean offered, twisting open his second bottle of beer. Sam sat on the picnic table beside him, staring straight ahead into the darkness, seething. Dean took a long drink, then tried again.

"Now we know about the Amazons, and when they surface again, we'll be ready. Well, if any of us are still alive in two years," he added wryly. At that, Sam had had enough. He slammed his own bottle down on the weathered boards of the table and launched himself to his feet.

"That's just it, Dean! Bobby was right. You're head's not in it, not since Cas died, and the stunt you pulled tonight?" He gestured to the Buick, where Emma slept, curled up in the back seat. "It's like you want to get yourself killed!"

"What else was I supposed to do?" Dean was on his feet now too. "That's my kid. My responsibility."

"That's not even human, Dean." Abruptly, Sam strode over to the Buick. Dean followed, his expression bemused as Sam opened the trunk and pulled out Emma's suitcase. He threw the pink overnight bag hard at Dean's chest. It was suspiciously light. Empty.

"You get it now? Emma wasn't running away from the Amazons. She never intended to leave. If she was going to use that suitcase for anything, it was for bringing back your hands and feet." Sam folded his arms, satisfied that he'd made his case. But Dean was shaking his head.

"Maybe she did plan to kill me, Sam, but she didn't. And it wasn't like I didn't give her the opportunity-"

"Really?" Sam interrupted, incredulous. "Dean, listen to yourself! You gave her the opportunity? Seriously? You did worse than choke. You deliberately turned your back on a monster. What gives you the right to take a stupid risk like that?"

"I just knew she didn't have it in her," Dean began, but Sam broke in again, outraged.

"You just knew. Right." His voice was thick with sarcasm. "Emma is not some innocent girl. She's not your daughter. Not in the way you seem to want her to be. Dean, she's a mistake. It was a stupid one-night stand, not- Not the birth of two souls in one."

"Hey! Enough with the romance novel crap! That's not what I meant," Dean protested, offended at the implication that he might be a romantic at heart. "She _is_ my kid, Sammy, even if she was a mistake. So her mother is a crazy man-killing monster. Her father's a Winchester. That's got to count for something." Dean scowled hard, as if daring Sam to contradict this claim.

Sam raised his hands in a gesture of reconciliation. This wasn't his brother's usual braggadocio. For all his apparent arrogance, Dean was full of self-doubt. Now more than ever, since Castiel had died. But here he was asserting his belief in Emma, that she had something in her worth saving. Something good, that could only have come from him.

Sam couldn't argue with that. Hell, he could see why Dean wanted to believe. He found himself wanting to believe it, too.

"Okay," he sighed. "We'll give her a chance. But, Dean, if you're wrong, I will end this. I'll take her out, you understand that, right?"

"No. If I'm wrong about her, don't worry, Sam, I'll gank her," Dean said firmly. "My mistake, my responsibility."

* * *

Mid-morning found the Buick parked outside a department store in a small town southeast of Seattle. Fortunately for Dean, Emma proved to be a typical teenage consumer, perfectly capable of filling a shopping cart with clothing and toiletries, no parental assistance required until the check-out line. Dean waited to swipe the credit card that would pay for the purchases while the clerk rang up stacks of t-shirts and jeans, socks and sweaters. He began to fidget as piles of bras and panties made their way along the check-out conveyor.

"Kids these days, huh? Sure need a lot of, uh...stuff." He smiled nervously. "She's my daughter," Dean rambled on, jerking his head at Emma, who was avidly browsing the candy display.

"Uh-huh." The middle-aged female clerk grunted noncommittally. Sam observed the exchange from the next check-out line.

"Airline lost her luggage," Dean improvised. Sam suppressed a chuckle at his brother's growing discomfort. The sudden need to share was a dead give-away.

"She's out here visiting, you know, for the holidays. Perfectly normal, legal, joint custody agreement," he hastened to assure the now skeptical clerk, who had slowed her scanning and stuffing clothing into plastic bags to look at him.

"It's not a holiday," she pointed out.

"It's not? I mean, it's not! Not for you, maybe. But we're Jewish," he announced, his smile tinged with desperation.

"Happy Hanukkah," Emma deadpanned, placing two king-size Snickers bars on the conveyor.

Later, at a diner some forty miles up the road, Dean recuperated from the minor ordeal with a burger and fries. Sam and Emma munched on Caesar salads, the teenager augmenting her healthy choice with a large chocolate milkshake. She'd also devoured two candy bars in the past hour, Sam noted. Apparently the Amazons hadn't indulged their initiates with sweets. Interesting, too, that she'd pushed aside the slices of grilled chicken that had topped the salad.

"Hey, Emma, you going to eat those?" he queried innocently. Intent on wolfing down the remaining ingredients, she silently waved a hand, indicating he could help himself. Dean was oblivious to the exchange, eyes closed in bliss as he chewed. Sam tried again, accidentally-on-purpose elbowing his brother as he reached for the extra helping of chicken.

"So, you're a vegetarian?"

"Vegetarian?" The word roused Dean from his feeding frenzy. He scoffed. "'Course she's not a vegetarian. Give the kid back her chicken, you moocher," he ordered Sam.

"No, it's okay. He can have it." Sam watched as Emma's jaw tightened.

"Look, Candy Crush, you can't live on chocolate and rabbit food-"

"No!" she insisted, voice rising, showing the first hint of emotion Sam had seen since their initial confrontation the night before. Puzzled by the unexpected outburst, Dean lowered his burger and turned to his brother for clarification.

"What is this? An Amazon thing, or a teenage girl thing?"

"Oh, that's right, you missed Professor Morrison's lecture. As part of their initiation, the Amazons feed on human flesh," Sam informed him. "That's why they take the hands and feet from the men they murder. Ritual cannibalism."

"They made us," Emma admitted, with a shudder at the chicken strip poised on the tines of Sam's fork. Dean gave his brother a long, level look.

"Well, clearly she hasn't gone full-on Hannibal Lecter on us, not unless I missed the part where the guy was a vegan, so… Let bygones be bygones. It's okay," he told Emma.

* * *

"Not sure I like this," Dean said still later as Sam picked the lock on a drab metal door, painted an undistinguished shade of tan to match the rest of the low, one story building. They were at the back of a strip mall on the outskirts of Boise. It was well after midnight, the place deserted.

"It's no big deal," Sam assured him as he slipped inside. Dean ushered Emma in, then quietly closed the door behind them as Sam turned on the lights. They moved on past storage and locker rooms, into a main area filled with weight machines and other exercise equipment.

"It just makes sense to know what she's capable of, that's all." Sam smiled at Emma.

"Yeah, well, make it snappy," Dean groused. "Then you can drive while I get some shut-eye."

Sam's first round of tests didn't take long. Using the free weights, Emma demonstrated her superhuman strength with squats, deadlifts, and bench presses.

"Three-fifty!" Dean whistled, impressed. Sam noted that Emma didn't react to the praise. She was as unemotional as ever. He led her across the gym to a boxing ring. Dean followed, catching hold of Sam's shoulder roughly.

"I don't like this. What are you trying to prove?"

"Look, Dean, you saw how she reacted last night. We know she's had some training."

"We all did," Emma said frankly. "Unarmed combat, and how to use the knives they gave us-"

"There you go, Sammy, she's had training." Dean folded his arms. "Amazons, go figure. Can we get back on the road, now?"

"I just want to see what she can do," Sam overrode his brother's objections. Directing Emma to climb into the ring, Sam joined her in the center and began running through a series of basic practice drills. Simple punches, kicks, and blocks, the rudiments of combat. Dean watched from a corner of the ring.

Quickly, Sam moved the impromptu session on to sparring.

"Don't hold back," he told Emma. She shot a quick look toward Dean, who nodded. It was clear that someone had taught her to fight during her brief childhood. Plain, no-frills, brutally effective moves, much like their father had taught his boys. But for all her strength, Emma was still a novice.

Sam stayed on the defensive at first, avoiding Emma's attacks. Though her punches and kicks had the force to shatter a grown man's bones, they were easy to deflect, dispersing the devastating force behind them. And no wonder. By the time he'd reached Emma's apparent age of sixteen, Sam Winchester had been a seasoned veteran of fights with monsters and schoolyard bullies alike. Her strength and rudimentary combat skills would destroy the average playground bully, Sam thought as he blocked a kick, knocking Emma off balance, but this was no contest. All her moves were clumsy, hopelessly telegraphed to his trained eye. Amateur.

He began to go on the offensive, pushing the girl off balance again, landing a punch here, a kick there. Emma's reactions were minimal. An indrawn breath, a rapid blink. She was stoic, Sam thought. His and Dean's own childhood had taught them to be the same. Sam didn't like the comparison. He kicked her legs out from under her, dropping her to the floor.

"Again," he commanded. She scrambled up and took her stance, balanced lightly on the balls of her feet as she'd been taught. Sam advanced, fast, and in a moment she was back on the floor.

"Again." Her cheeks were flushed pink, her breath coming hard. Her brief training hadn't built up her stamina. She was already tiring, but she jumped up again, an obedient little soldier. Sam felt a flash of annoyance at her compliance. He let her stay on her feet this time, let her aim her punches and kicks that he never let land full force, if he let them land at all. Meanwhile, his attacks found their mark.

"Sammy! That's enough!" Dean barked, advancing.

"Just one more thing," Sam soothed, backing off. "It's just a little sparring. We're both fine. You're doing fine, right, Emma?"

"I'm okay," she panted.

Good little soldier, Sam thought. He'd just landed a kick to the outside of her thigh, a vicious strike that would leave a bruise. She hid her reactions well, but the body could only take so much. Her eyes were bright with moisture. Tears were a reflex reaction to pain that could only be held back for so long. And once those tears fell, Dean's patience with the exercise would end.

Sam didn't want to make her cry. He didn't want to hurt her, not really. A part of him felt terrible about the whole demonstration, a grown man, a hunter, beating up on an inexperienced girl. He had nearly a foot of height and a good one hundred pounds on her. He felt a rush of shame, quickly suppressed. He was a bully. Or would be, Sam reminded himself, if Emma was a normal, human girl, but she wasn't. She was a monster. The thought allowed him to maintain the necessary detachment.

Without warning, before Dean could respond, Sam stepped in, fists cocked, batting aside Emma's sluggish attempt to block them. They landed, one-two, hard blows to the ribs that knocked the wind out of her on a sharp, half-stifled cry of pain. Dean's wordless bellow echoed and amplified the small sound, but Sam had already stopped, arms at his sides, leaving himself open.

Emma's eyes flared with inhuman intensity. The skin around them flushed red, veins outlined like flashes of lightning, pupils dilated. Dragging in a breath, she erupted into violence, pushing Sam with all her strength, lifting him off his feet. He flew back, hitting the ropes, which bowed outward at the force. His body hung limp, nearly horizontal, suspended over the edge of the ring. Then the ropes sprang back, tossing Sam onto his hands and knees. He raised his head, panting, half-stunned and unable to get his feet under him just yet.

"There. You see?"

Emma stood, swaying slightly, shoulders hunched, eyes wild with bloodlust. The monstrous coloring faded swiftly, leaving her looking frightened and small as she turned toward her father, tears spilling down her cheeks, but it was too late.

Sam's plan had worked. Dean had seen the transformation.


	3. Chapter 3

Emma's bruised ribs and thigh throbbed in time with her pulse, but the ache was nothing compared to the shame of the tears blurring her vision. Rubbing her knuckles across her eyelids, she tried to erase the evidence of weakness.

A sidelong glance at Sam as he scrambled to his feet confirmed that at least he was hurting, too. Cold comfort. She should never have lost control. But if she did have to lose it, Emma thought, she should have inflicted more than just a couple of bruises. Some monster she was.

Squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin, she turned back to her father. Even braced for it, Emma found it hard to meet his eyes. They were cold, as she'd expected, though for a moment when Sam had charged her, and her father had shouted at him, she'd been warmed by the heat of anger in his voice. There was no trace of that anger now as he watched her, just that icy calm that made the vaunted control the Amazons took such pride in seem a paltry, fragile thing. Emma blinked away a fresh welling of tears at the thought. As a monster, she was clearly a failure, but she would not allow herself to cry.

"You okay?" Her father's question caught her off guard. His eyes were on her, but when Sam answered it was clear whom the query had been directed to.

"I'm fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me is all."

"Well, you asked for it," Dean shot back.

"You had to see for yourself," Sam replied.

"All right. I saw." He was still watching Emma, still emotionless except for the brief flash of annoyance he'd directed at his brother.

"You okay? Not planning on any more Gozer moments tonight, are we?" She didn't get the reference, but his meaning was clear enough. Emma nodded, not trusting her voice.

"All right," Dean repeated. Let's get out of here. Now," he added in a harsh growl when Sam seemed about to protest.

* * *

Sam drove. Her father leaned back in the passenger seat, eyes closed. Emma was too keyed up to even consider sleep, but as the featureless dark blurred past she dozed off, lulled by the endless unrolling of worn asphalt beneath the old car's tires. When the motion stopped, she woke.

"Salt Lake already?" her father asked, yawning and stretching.

"Dean, we have to talk about this-"

"Now, Sammy? Seriously? It's the middle of the night," Dean groaned. "It's the middle of nowhere."

Which made sense, Emma thought. The middle of nowhere seemed like a good place to bury a body. She was wide awake now, her stomach a hard knot, higher in her abdomen than she thought a stomach had any right to be.

"If you're going to gank me I'd just as soon get it over with," she piped up from the back seat. Two faces turned to stare at her.

"Gank you? Nobody's going to gank you!" Dean turned to Sam, his tone accusing. "Did you tell her that?"

"No!" Sam protested.

"B-but I attacked him," Emma pointed out. Her heart was racing, but her voice was reasonably steady, all things considered. If only she could stop shaking.

"He asked for it!" Dean's tone was brusque. He closed his eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath, visibly struggling for calm. The sight left Emma with a wild urge to laugh. He'd seemed far more in control back in the gym, when, she'd been almost certain, he'd been planning on killing her.

"I don't understand," she said, forcing the words out through teeth clenched to stop them from chattering. The air inside the Buick was cooling fast now that the engine was turned off, but her body wasn't reacting to the cold. This was emotion. Fear, and a faint, stubborn hope that was somehow worse than fear. Emma was sure that without that hope her fear wouldn't be nearly as bad.

"He asked for it. You pushed him. It happens." To demonstrate, Dean reached over abruptly and shoved Sam's head into the steering wheel.

"Hey!" Sam punched his older brother's arm hard.

"Ow. See? No harm done," Dean concluded. He shifted his body to face Emma fully.

"These are the ground rules: you're not allowed to slam anybody through any walls. No crushed skulls. No ritual mutilations. No killing, period, got that? Now, you lose your temper-"

"She could easily kill someone," Sam finished Dean's sentence for him. Dean glared at his brother.

"So she learns to control her temper."

"Okay. Say she does. What are you going to do, Dean? Drag her around the country like Dad did with us when we were kids? Oh, wait," Sam's voice rose, laced with sarcasm. "Except instead of us hunting demons, now it's Leviathans hunting _us_. What about any of that sounds normal, or safe, or fair to a kid?"

Dean started to speak, but Emma broke in.

"My mom sent me off to learn how to kill my own father," she told Sam. "It's not like I've ever had normal." Sam nodded at that, but immediately turned back to Dean.

"Remember Osiris? It wasn't that long ago that he targeted you-"

"Osiris was a batshit crazy old Egyptian god," Dean interrupted, but Sam cut him off.

"Who targeted you because you were wracked with guilt over your influence on Jo and me. And now you're honestly telling me you'd be okay with raising Emma as a hunter?"

"She said it; the Amazons weren't exactly dishing out picket fences and apple pies," Dean replied. "Life with me might suck, but it's still a life. Beats the alternative. And who says Emma's got to be a hunter?" he added defiantly. "She's almost eighteen. In a couple of years she can go off to college and take a stab at normal."

Sam gave his brother an exasperated look.

"If we're even alive in a couple of years."

Dean opened the passenger side door abruptly and got out, letting a gust of freezing air into the Buick.

"Yeah, speaking of, switch off. You get some sleep, and in the morning we'll call Frank, see if he's got any intel on the Leviathans. Because we're hunting those sons of bitches!"

* * *

A couple of weeks later they'd switched cars yet again. The brothers had solved a case or two that had come up, nothing more. In spite of Dean's bravado, they'd made no progress as far as the Leviathans were concerned. Sam was exhausted from their latest hunt, but it was impossible to sleep. Not with Lucifer as his roommate.

Dean and Emma shared the room next door. Some nights, paranoia, whether his, Dean's, or both, had them all crammed into one room, if they even risked a motel stay. Some nights found the Winchesters squatting in an abandoned building. Some nights they just pulled off on the side of some back road and slept in the car. Emma's arrival hadn't changed their reality. They were still on the run, hiding out, avoiding detection by the Leviathans.

Having a teenage girl tagging along hadn't been as difficult as Sam had feared. Emma's time with the other Amazon initiates had left her unfamiliar with the concepts of either comfort or privacy. Of course, growing up on the road with John, the brothers hadn't had much privacy either. Their routine hadn't changed all that much since adding Emma to the mix. Naturally, they were careful the teen didn't see them undressed, but then, Sam reflected with a snort, they hadn't exactly been in the habit of lounging around naked to begin with. If nothing else, his macho big brother had a streak of homophobia. In spite of all his lack of inhibition where women were concerned, Dean had no trouble being modest when the situation called for it. Even so, Emma's addition made things awkward, and it wasn't just the logistics of sharing cramped living quarters. She was still essentially a stranger, and one neither Winchester brother could bring themselves to fully trust.

On the virtually nonexistent bright side, Emma provided a distraction when Sam emerged from his room, blinking blearily in the wan winter sunlight and not at all refreshed by a hot shower that Lucifer had livened up with a vivid hallucination of blood gushing from the shower head and flowing through his hair, down his body, sticky and reeking of decay. The girl was slouched in one of the plastic lawn chairs arranged in pairs on the sidewalk that ran along the front of the motel, sipping from a can of root beer and idly poking with one booted toe at some dried remnants of weeds that lined a crack in the worn cement.

Sam couldn't imagine sitting around like that, just waiting, killing time. Given a similar opportunity, he would have taken off for the afternoon, to loiter in a diner or an arcade or just to walk around and explore whatever town John's latest hunt had landed them in. But then, Sam thought, by Emma's age he'd been accustomed to fending for himself for days at a time.

She looked up warily when he sprawled into the chair next to her.

"Nothing going on at the shopping center? he asked, indicating the strip mall across the street with a jerk of his head.

"Dad said not to leave the motel grounds."

Sam's brow furrowed as he scanned the horseshoe-shaped arc of the weedy parking lot. Emma's current world was bounded by an overhang housing a couple of vending machines and an ice dispenser on one side, and the dreary motel office on the other. He knew the Amazons had drilled obedience into the girl, but this seemed unhealthy. Extreme. What did Emma imagine the consequences would be if she stepped across the street for a magazine or a bite to eat?

He felt a swift pang of pity for the girl. A typical teenager would rebel against such unreasonable restrictions. It was normal, healthy even, to test parental boundaries. But Emma wasn't a normal teen, any more than Dean was a normal dad. Not that long ago she'd been convinced Dean would kill her. Sam suppressed a sigh. Father and daughter would just have to work it out for themselves. Still…

"It won't always be this bad," he promised. "It's just that we're kind of at war right now."

"I know," Emma said matter-of-factly. "The Leviathans." Sam nodded.

"Yeah. That, and Dean-your dad-he won't talk about it, but we lost a good friend just recently-"

"The beat-up old guy with the flask. I heard him telling Mom they were close," Emma elaborated at Sam's quizzical look.

"His name was Bobby. He was like a father to us, after our own dad died."

"I'm sorry for your loss." Sam resisted the urge to chuckle. The words were so stilted, and yet, he thought, sincere. The loss of a parent was something he supposed Emma could understand.

"Thank you," he said solemnly, ignoring Lucifer's sarcastic comment. He averted his eyes, but the hallucination was still there, leaning against the motel wall just beyond Emma's chair. Sam could see him in his peripheral vision, making obscene gestures and leering at the girl.

"Dean'll wake up in time for supper," he assured her, forcing a smile, and heaved himself to his feet. Alcohol, Sam thought. He needed to get his hands on some alcohol. If he got good and drunk first, he might be able to get some sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's note: thank you so much for the reviews, follows, and favorites! They are much appreciated, especially so as I am new to the Supernatural fandom. _

* * *

Dean stuffed crumpled t-shirts and button-downs and jeans into the washing machine. Sam, moving more sluggishly, loaded similar clothing items into the next machine in the row. He took the box of cheap powdered detergent his brother passed to him and dumped some over his laundry before passing the box on to Emma. Laundry was a new concept for the teen. During her brief infancy and childhood she'd outgrown her clothes before they'd even had a chance to get dirty. Had someone taken them away to be washed and reused by some other new daughter of the tribe, or had her mother simply discarded them? Emma didn't know. Following Sam's lead, she sifted a portion of powdered soap over her own garments, shut the lid, and loaded the quarters her father had given her into the mechanism.

He was already gone when Emma turned away from the washing machine, off to buy liquor or to gas up the car they were using this week, or to scan the local papers for news of Dick Roman's far-flung business dealings. His brother slumped in a chair, elbows on his knees, head cradled in his hands. He was fine, Emma reminded herself. An obvious lie, but even the youngest member of her mother's tribe knew better than to acknowledge suffering or pain. Her father's side of the family clearly followed the same code.

The scattering of out-of-date magazines on the small table beside Sam Winchester barely rated a glance. Emma had become familiar with the titles, staples of every gas station and motel office and coffee shop of every town they passed through. There was little within the glossy pages to hold her interest.

The small, staticky television set behind the counter was equally unappealing. The tribe had kept pace with the times, making full use of modern technology to educate their young initiates. During their short, intense period of rapid growth, Emma and her Amazon sisters had been exposed to hours of educational programming. Their developing minds had absorbed and retained it all. But it had been nothing but images on a screen, Emma thought now. Vivid, memorable, but not real. She'd known, on an intellectual level, what winter was. But until her lips had chapped and her body had shivered in the icy wind blowing forty miles an hour across a Wyoming truck stop parking lot, she hadn't really understood.

Emma seated herself next to Sam and drew a worn notebook from inside her jacket. The flimsy cover was so old and had been creased so many times that the decaying fibers felt soft, almost like suede. The pages, when she opened it, were yellowed and brittle around the edges. Emma turned them gently, caution that slowed the pace of her reading, but necessary to preserve the notes scribbled in the fragile margins.

The knowledge collected in the Winchesters' stash of heavy, musty old volumes and tattered notebooks was real, vital in a way that no one who wasn't a hunter-or a monster-could understand. Emma devoured it, reading as much as she could. Some of the books were written in foreign languages, or in alphabets of strange symbols that didn't belong to any country on earth. The handwriting in some of the notebooks was so spidery and faded that she couldn't make out more than a word here and there.

In the first few days after fleeing from the tribe, Emma had felt numb. Dully, she'd worried that the apathy would last, that the plodding pace of her thoughts was the best her brain could manage now that her growth had slowed to normal. What was wrong with her? The matrons had boasted, not only of the Amazons' superior strength, but of their superior intellect as well. Was she the first stupid Amazon in the history of the tribe?

Whether her malaise had been caused by exhaustion or shock or simply the adjustment period after three days of supernaturally rapid development, it was over now. She had no trouble understanding the lore. She had no difficulty doing her own laundry, or getting her own breakfast from a vending machine, or keeping herself entertained while her father and his brother were busy with a hunt. She didn't get in the way, didn't have to be coddled or looked after.

"Banshee, eh?" Dean's voice startled Emma. "Dad and Sam hunted a banshee in Florida, back in ninety-eight," her father reminisced, leaning over her to read the page. She looked up with a tentative smile, eager for more details, but he'd already shifted his focus to Sam, dozing in the seat next to her.

He jerked upright as they watched, eyes wild, batting at something on his shirt front. Flames, Emma wondered, or maybe bugs? In a moment he'd recovered, scrubbing a hand tiredly over his face.

"You okay, Sam?"

"Yeah."

* * *

Sam wasn't okay at all, but the brothers had found another case to work on. Cursed objects were causing deaths in Portland, Oregon. Emma rode along with Sam when he rented a trailer to haul away the collection of boxes. It was kind of pathetic, she thought critically, how excited she was at the prospect of helping to load the trailer. At least she would be doing something useful, instead of just keeping out of the way. But they were at war, Emma reminded herself. War was a concept she understood well, thanks to the Amazons, but this wasn't history, some Ancient Greek battle. The Winchesters were fighting a war, right here and now. They had enough to deal with, she knew, without a kid tagging along, getting in the way, and so Emma endured the boredom, the loneliness, the waiting.

"So, tell me about the Amazons," Sam spoke up from the driver's seat. Emma tensed.

"What do you want to know?" she asked, keeping her voice carefully neutral. Sam sighed, a quiet, weary gust of breath.

"Look, I know everything I need to know to hunt them. I wouldn't just-" Another sigh. "That's not what I meant, Emma. I'm curious about you. Your upbringing," he clarified. He chuckled ruefully.

"Just talk to me. Help me stay alert."

"Oh. Well, um, Mom used to read to me. Picture books," Emma said slowly, casting about for something that sounded relatively normal, but that still might interest her father's brother.

"Then when I was a little older, she taught me to read. But she still read to me, sometimes, even after I'd learned how." She huddled deeper into her coat. The cab of the pick-up was cold. Sam hadn't turned on the heat. Intentionally, Emma assumed, to help him stay awake.

"Dean said you were, like, five or so when they took you for your training," he prompted after a minute of silence. "Did your mother visit you?"

"No. It wasn't allowed." Emma controlled her voice as she explained. "None of the mothers, the birth mothers, I mean, were involved in the initiations. So they wouldn't be tempted to be lenient with their own daughters."

"That's sad, that they took you from her so young," Sam said vaguely. His voice sounded distant. "Dean was only four when our mother died. He doesn't have a whole lot of memories of her, either."

"Why not?" Emma didn't understand.

"He was too young." There was a pause, and then Sam spoke again, sounding more alert.

"Wait, what do you remember about Lydia?"

"Mom? Everything. Well, I mean, obviously I don't remember when I was a newborn." Emma resisted the urge to giggle. Imagine being able to remember being born. Gross.

"I remember her taking me home. Rocking me to sleep. Teaching me my first words."

Sam chuckled, and she gave him a quizzical look.

"Emma, that's incredible. Ordinary humans don't remember infancy at all. Dean said you sounded more mature than a normal toddler, but I didn't realize..." his voice trailed off.

"So you don't remember your mother? Not at all?" The pick-up truck swung wide as they turned a corner, then jerked as he brought it back on course.

"Huh? No. I was just a baby when she died," he replied without emotion, his voice drowsy.

"That's terrible," Emma blurted. Sam let out a quiet exhale through his nose, a light scoff.

"That's just how it is."

Emma fell silent, not knowing what else to say. Sam's lack of memories made Mary Winchester's murder seem even more unjust. It was as if he'd never had a mother at all. Absorbed in her thoughts, she didn't notice the pick-up's gradual lane change until the headlights of a tractor trailer bore down on them.

"Sam!" Between Emma's startled yelp and the deep blast of the eighteen-wheeler's horn, her uncle awoke with a gasp and yanked the truck back into the right lane just in time.

* * *

They stopped for coffee, and when they continued on Sam blasted the radio, sparing Emma the effort of making further conversation. She was grateful when his phone rang. Her father should have better luck at keeping his younger brother alert. Emma couldn't make out Dean's side of the conversation, but she could hear the low, reassuring rumble of his voice.

"Leviathans? Here? You're sure?" Sam asked sharply. "All right, I'll meet you at _Out With The Old_." He hung up and drove on, seemingly more focused now, and parked in front of the antique shop a few minutes later.

"It'd be best for you to wait here," he told Emma. "Apparently Scott set off another cursed item. This shouldn't take long."

She watched as Sam approached the store front. Dean joined him-her father must have been waiting for the truck to pull up-and both disappeared inside. The moment the door closed behind them, Emma was sliding down out of the cab, easing the door shut behind her. It closed with a muffled thud and she tiptoed up to the plate glass display window.

Sam had said it would be best for her to wait. It was a suggestion, she reasoned, not an order. She crouched down and peered inside, trusting the big red SALE! EVERYTHING MUST GO! signs covering half the glass to conceal her from those inside. The Winchesters were talking to two other adults. Real estate agents, judging by their matching red jackets. What were they doing there, so late at night? And where was Scott, the hapless shop owner?

Emma caught sight of him duct-taped to a chair just as the female agent lunged toward her dad. Springing up from her hiding place, Emma ran to the door and wrenched it open. Whatever was going on inside the shop, it wasn't good.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sam struggling with the male agent, but the sight didn't really register. In the few seconds it had taken her to rush inside, the female agent had thrown her father across the room.

"Dad!" Emma cried out, but her attention was diverted by the female agent. Her face was utterly inhuman, eyeless. Nothing but a gaping maw full of fangs and... Tongues? Emma shook her head. Her brain wasn't processing what her eyes were seeing.

"I wouldn't mind a little snack before dinner," the Leviathan remarked casually, tossing her hair out of her eyes. Her face had reverted to normal while she spoke, but now she advanced on Emma, her human features retracting to reveal that hideous mouth. Twin tongues waggled obscenely as she reached for the teen.

"_Aaaah!_" With a shout that was far more scream of terror than Amazon battle cry, Emma charged in to meet her, gripping the red lapels of her jacket and hurling the Leviathan away from her, a move that would have sent a normal human crashing into the far wall. Emma realized her mistake an instant later. The Leviathan was more than her equal in strength. She grabbed Emma's shoulder with one hand, using the teen to steady herself and recover her balance. The backhanded blow she dealt out was almost an afterthought-she was already turning away to finish off Dean-but it was strong enough to snap Emma's head back and fling her twenty feet.

Sam beheaded the female Leviathan with an antique sword, ending the brief fight.

"Emma! You okay there? Emma!" Her father's voice was brusque, but the hand brushing her hair back from her forehead was surprisingly gentle. She squinted up at him, muttering a few incoherent syllables of protest as he produced a flashlight and shone it directly into her eyes. Checking her pupils for sign of a concussion, she realized, her head clearing.

"I'm okay." Her cheek burned where the Leviathan's hand had made contact, and there was a corresponding drumbeat of pain where the back of her head had hit the floor, but Emma quickly scrambled to her feet, batting away her father's steadying hands.

"The hell did you think you were doing?" Concern turned to exasperation as soon as he saw that she was relatively unharmed. Dean jabbed a finger in Sam's direction.

"Either one of us tells you to stay put, you stay put," he growled. "You got it? That's the only way this is going to work. I don't have time to babysit you, not during a fight."

The bruises hadn't drawn tears, but the scolding did. A rush of shame turned the rest of her face as red as the imprint of the Leviathan's knuckles on her cheekbone. Fortunately, her father had turned to join Sam's discussion with the remaining Leviathan. Emma stared hard at the female's decapitated body, the stump of her neck oozing black goo onto the floorboards. They were at war, she reminded herself. The thought helped her regain control. Surreptitiously, she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her coat.

Later, after the shopkeeper had been sent away and the male Leviathan carried off the body of the female, her father brought her a makeshift ice pack. She held it against her swollen cheek, as directed, while he and his brother loaded the U-Haul. Emma knew better than to argue, until it was time for Dean and Sam to move the warded safe holding the worst of the cursed items. Seeing them struggling to wrestle it onto a dolly, Emma walked hesitantly into Dean's line of sight, wordlessly asking permission.

"Sure. Knock yourself out."

The safe wasn't too heavy, not with Emma's Amazon strength, but it was too wide to wrap her arms around, making for an awkward burden. She lugged it out to the trailer, having to set it down several times and adjust her grip. By the time it was safely stowed inside, Emma felt as if she'd redeemed herself, at least a little bit.

They crowded into the cab of the pick-up truck. Emma stared out through the windshield, watching the headlights illuminate mile after mile of dull gray asphalt. Eventually, she closed her eyes, only to drift into a dream of the Leviathan closing in on her, its hideous fanged mouth gaping wide. She jerked awake, realizing with a start of embarrassment that she'd dozed off, leaning on her father's shoulder. On the other side of her, Sam woke with a stifled gasp, troubled by dreams of his own.

"Hey." Dean's voice was low, barely more than a whisper. "Get some sleep. At least one of us ought to." Walled in on either side by solid muscle, lulled by the hum of the engine, Emma was finally able to obey.


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's note: Dean's line on the phone is copied verbatim from a script by Sera Gamble. Likewise, much of the dialogue when Dean and Emma first meet in chapter one is taken verbatim from a script written by Jerry Wanek and Eugenie Ross-Leming. As with the characters, setting, and all the original awesomeness that is Supernatural, I don't claim to have created any of it._

_As always, reviews-especially constructive criticism-are to me as pie is to Dean. Thanks for reading!_

* * *

Emma ran inside while her father pumped gas. She bought coffee and food, or what passed for food at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Candy bars or bags of chips, frozen burritos hastily nuked in a microwave or foil-wrapped sandwiches retrieved from under a heat lamp. Unappetizing fare, but the taste didn't matter. It was simply fuel. Like the gas filling the tank of the Dodge Charger, it was necessary to keep them on the road.

Sitting up front in the seat usually occupied by her father's brother, Emma tended the radio while Dean drove. Whenever the station they were listening to began to fade out, she tuned in a new one, skipping over the channels that featured country-western or rap. A month on the road with the Winchesters had made her an expert in the kind of music her father liked. Dean signaled his favorite tunes by cranking up the volume or drumming on the dashboard, or sometimes even singing along, to Emma's secret amusement and Sam's obvious dismay.

Not that Dean was doing any of that now. They covered mile after mile in silence. Sam wasn't riding shotgun on this trip; he was locked in a psych ward in Indiana after too many sleepless nights and days of 'I'm okay' had unraveled into a life-threatening psychosis. If her father didn't find someone to help his brother, Sam was going to die.

"Tell me about ghouls."

The Charger never veered out of its lane. Dean never jerked himself awake, never jerked the wheel to bring the car back on course. Hour after hour, her father drove on, never seeming to tire. He didn't need her to talk to him to help him stay alert. She was the one who required conversation. Each time Emma felt herself dozing off, she prompted him: tell me about the time Sam and your dad hunted the banshee. Tell me about werewolves. Tell me about witches. Each time, her father answered, his voice as rough as gravel, as dark and rich as coffee.

"Go on, go to sleep," he told her as they crossed the border from Minnesota into North Dakota.

Emma shook her head in dull defiance, although her eyes felt as raw as a fresh brand. It was cozy in the old car, listening to her father's war stories as they rolled on through the dark. It felt like home. She shook her head again, suppressing a pang of guilt. She liked riding shotgun, found herself cherishing this time spent with Dean, but they wouldn't be on this road trip if not for Sam. Maybe her dad didn't need her to stay awake, Emma thought, but she would anyway. For Sam's sake.

Morning. Another convenience store. In the restroom, Emma splashed cold water on her face, then chugged half a cup of coffee, sweet with sugar and pale with powdered non-dairy creamer, on her way to the cashier's counter. Her father was waiting outside the car when she emerged with their breakfast. Stretching his legs, she thought. Emma handed him his coffee.

"Thanks." To her surprise, he put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side in a one-armed hug.

"Glad you came along," he began in his usual brusque way, but Emma stiffened and ducked out from under his arm. Hugs were for babies, left behind when Amazons began their initiations. She retreated to the passenger side of the Dodge, confused and more than a little embarrassed by her reaction. Part of her wanted to stay inside that warm half-circle of love and protection, even as a voice inside her head insisted with stubborn pride that she didn't need any such thing.

It was afternoon before they reached the cabin. She collapsed on the cot in the corner. Lying on the lumpy, musty-smelling mattress, her body felt as if it was still in motion, riding shotgun in the old Charger. They'd been on the road for twenty-four hours.

* * *

"I'm a friend of Bobby Singer's. I'm, uh, looking for some info. If you could call me back…"

It was dark again when she woke to her father's voice on the phone, words as familiar as the chorus of an old song on a classic rock station. His plea had woven itself into her dreams. She clenched her fists as a surge of emotion caught her up in its grasp, anger at the circumstances that had reduced this tough, independent hunter to begging for help from strangers.

Control, she reminded herself, and sat up, pushing off the quilt that Dean must have covered her with. Emma couldn't remember unfolding it, or taking off the boots that now sat side-by-side on the floor beside the cot. She rose and padded into the bathroom on stocking feet.

Her father had switched from coffee to beer, Emma noted after she'd washed up. It was impossible to tell if he'd gotten any sleep at all; the sagging couch in the center of the single room looked as if it had been slept on for a thousand and one Montana nights.

He was on the phone again, responding in monosyllables until something the caller said suddenly sparked his interest.

"We've got a lead," he informed Emma, closing the phone. "Some guy in Colorado."

Within minutes they were back on the road again.

* * *

"You know it won't always be this bad."

Emma had been half asleep, staring out the window at dried brown stalks of winter weeds and gritty, grey crusts of dirty snow. Dean's voice startled her out of her stupor. She turned to watch his profile as he drove.

"We'll get Sam fixed up, get a handle on Dick Roman and the Leviathans," he said. "Once things settle down, we'll get you enrolled in school-"

"I don't need to go to school," Emma protested, but her father cut her off.

"You're smart. You're going to school." Dean's tone was gruff, warning Emma not to try and argue. "I had Frank Deveraux working on the documents," he went on. "Birth certificate, social security card, report cards, shots, the whole permanent record thing."

"Yeah, but he's probably dead," she couldn't resist commenting. Her dad had made her wait in the pick-up truck outside the crazy hacker's beat-up old RV, but Emma knew what he and Sam had found inside: smashed computer equipment spattered with blood.

Dean scoffed, a short, dismissive snort.

"Frank's not the only forger I know. Look, you're doing great, handling all this. I just want you to know I've still got a plan. I haven't forgotten. It might take a while, but things'll get back to normal."

She felt buoyed by the praise, in spite of the sobering reminder of Sam's breakdown, Frank Deveraux's likely death. Bobby, Cas, John, Jess, Mary… Her father didn't talk much about it, but Emma had read enough cryptic notes in the margins of old journals, heard enough hints in snippets of conversation between Dean and his brother. This wasn't the first time the Winchesters had been at war. They'd fought demons and angels alike. Lost family and friends. Been to hell and back… Literally. She felt a sudden, entirely inappropriate urge to laugh, and gave in to it.

"Come on, was your life ever normal?" Dean laughed along with her.

"Nah, not really," he admitted. "I did okay, though. Got my G.E.D. You're smart," he repeated, "you'll like school. Sam always did."

"But you didn't?" Emma asked, puzzled. Her father was smart, too, she thought, but he spoke as if Sam was the only one who had succeeded in school. Dean scoffed again.

"I wasn't cut out to be a 'mathlete'. Not like Sam." The term was unfamiliar, but Emma seize on the athlete portion.

"But you must have been good at sports. You must have been popular-"

"Not team sports, no. And no, I wasn't popular. Never really fit in," Dean said matter-of-factly. "Kind of hard to find common ground with regular kids when your family hunts monsters for a living."

His mood was lighter, now that they had a lead, and the talk about school had left him relaxed, even smiling from time to time as they spoke. It was gratifying to be able to distract her dad from Sam's current desperate condition, but that satisfaction was offset by Emma's complete bafflement. Her father always seemed so cool and self-assured, but he made it sound as if he'd been a failure at just about every aspect of high school.

"Did you at least go to prom?" she asked plaintively, recalling a teen magazine she'd picked up in a motel lobby while waiting for Dean and Sam to solve a series of murders at some kiddie pizza arcade. Prom was apparently the pinnacle of the high school social scene, but her dad just snorted.

"No. What gave you the idea I would have wanted to go to prom?"

"I don't know! I've never been to school," Emma retorted. "You mean you didn't even date?"

This time her father's laugh sounded embarrassed.

"Um, yeah, you might say I uh, dated a few girls," he admitted slowly.

Emma sighed. At least he hadn't been a complete social outcast. After a moment she continued her inquisition.

"So you've had a girlfriend? You know, a serious girlfriend," she pressed. Obviously, her mom didn't count. She was thinking of someone like Sam's college girlfriend Jessica, but tactfully didn't say so.

"Traveling all the time, hunting things, keeping secrets… Not exactly conducive to settling down," Dean pointed out.

"No girlfriend? _Ever_? You're thirty-three," Emma protested.

"No girlfriend." Her father switched on the radio and turned the dial, ending the conversation. The effort yielded static, a local livestock report, country-western music, more static. Dean turned back to the country-western station, endured it for thirty seconds, then sighed and switched the radio off.

"Okay, I had a girlfriend. And yeah, it was serious. Even lived with her for about a year, when Sam was, um… Away. She had a kid." Her father's voice was harsh, as if the memory pained him. "He'd be a couple years younger than you."

Jealousy hit hard, swift as a punch to the stomach. Her father had had a son. A family that he'd lived a normal life with. A whole year, in one place. Just as quickly, the emotion dissipated, replaced by horrified remorse. The boy and his mother… They were dead, Emma thought. They must be. Hunters' families had a high mortality rate, worse even than hunters themselves, or so it seemed. Tragedy was a common thread binding all those worn, leather-bound journals.

"Oh! Oh, no. I'm so sorry for your loss."

"You don't need to be. They're not dead. They're alive and well. Living in Battle Creek, last I heard."

"But how? Why?" Emma sputtered. Dean hitched one shoulder up in a shrug.

"People break up, Emma. They move on."

"Because you're a hunter, is that why? She- Your girlfriend- What was her name? She didn't understand, did she."

"No, she knew. She understood, better than I had any right to expect," he rasped. Emma realized he still hadn't told her the woman's name. "Sometimes things just don't work out," Dean said. "People move on."

The explanation didn't make any sense to Emma. Ordinary people broke up and moved on. Hunters and their families, she thought, they ought to know better. They knew what was out there in the dark. Terrible, evil things normal people didn't even know existed. Ordinary people broke up over ordinary things. Money. Cheating. Trivial things. Her father had saved the world! He deserved so much better.

"She must have been a real bitch, then-" Emma began, angry now on his behalf, but Dean cut her off.

"Don't you say that! Subject closed. We're not going to talk about them, either of them, ever again."

Emma swallowed hard.

"I'm sorry. It's just not fair," she murmured after another mile. Her father exhaled heavily. He scrubbed a hand over his face, resigned.

"Look, none of it was their fault. I ended it. I made Cas- I had their memories wiped clean. Like I'd never existed."

"That's not fair either! Even if really bad things happened," Emma blurted.

She'd read more than enough to imagine any number of scenarios, things that would make her dad willing to give up this nameless woman and her son, to keep them safe. That, at least, made sense. She couldn't imagine her father bickering over unpaid bills, or sneaking out to have an affair.

"You should have let her make her own choice."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn't matter," Dean said doggedly. "Nobody would choose to have me in their life."

Emma's heart ached for him. She twisted in her seat to face him.

"I did."

He was silent for a minute, staring out at the road. Then he scoffed.

"Yeah, but you're not normal."

Emma blinked. That was callous, even by Winchester standards. Then she saw the gleam in her dad's eye as he looked sidelong at her, the upward tilt at the corner of his mouth. Typical. She balled up her fist and punched his upper arm, lightly, mindful of her strength, but hard enough to make him wince. Emma grinned.

"Neither are you."


	6. Chapter 6

Dean parked the Dodge Charger across the street from a small mom'n'pop style grocery store. Emma pushed the driver's seat forward as soon as her father left the vehicle and scrambled out before he could tell her to stay in the car. The road trip had taken a turn for the awkward ever since they'd picked up the amnesiac faith healer. Emma just hoped the stranger could do something to help Sam.

Inside the store, she made a beeline for the restroom. Three solid days on the road with barely a break had left her feeling nostalgic for the relative luxury of a motel shower stall. Even the gross mildew-stained one in Portland, Emma thought, or the one in Wichita with the gigantic spider in residence in a corner of the ceiling. She washed her hands and face at the sink, ran her fingers through her hair, and emerged from the restroom just in time to see her father stab a man in the chest.

Emma gaped at the shafts of light beaming from the man's wide open eyes and mouth, at the blood glistening on the blade of the knife. Before she could fully process what she was seeing, two more men crowded into the narrow aisle in front of Dean. Another brushed past Emma, heading for her father. He grinned ferally at her as he shouldered by, eyes as black and shiny as the back side of an eight ball. Demons, Emma realized, recalling the lore she'd read. She'd walked into a demon ambush.

The closest one turned his back on her as he passed by, clearly dismissing her as a threat. His mistake. Emma jumped on his back, clamped an arm around his neck, and squeezed. He bucked and flung himself backward, trying to slam her into the metal shelving, but she pushed off with her feet and hung on as the shelves crashed to the floor. More crashes came from the next aisle where Dean battled the other two demons. Frantically, Emma recalled what lore she could while she clung to the demon's neck. She'd once read an exorcism ritual, Latin words that hadn't made sense then, words she couldn't remember now. Holy water, she thought wildly. Salt. Her father's knife. As if on cue, the demon-killing blade clattered to the floor. Another crash echoed through the store as one of the demons flung Dean across the room.

"Dad!"

"Hold on!" he yelled, hurling himself back into the fight.

Taking the words literally, Emma clenched her arm tighter around the demon's neck, clasping her hands together to increase the force of her grip. He fought with the strength of desperation, with no concern for the damage done to his host, slamming her body into shelving, clawing at her, making her grateful for the layers of winter clothing she wore. In the end, though, the possessed body was only human. She felt the life go out of it when it sagged, limp as a plush toy in her arms. Emma spared a glance for her father. He'd been thrown to the floor again, but one of the remaining demons was beaming shafts of light from a howling mouth and a gaping wound that seemed to open spontaneously in the center of his chest. The other threw back his head with a roar, letting loose another cloud of black smoke as he fled.

It was only then that the body in her arms twitched, its slack mouth falling open to release its own foul black cloud.

"Emmanuel, you son of a bitch," her father breathed.

The bodies in front of him fell to the floor. Emma blinked. Instead of the faith healer, a tough-looking woman stood there holding his knife.

"Emmanuel? Yeah, not so much," she said dryly.

"Meg," her father snarled.

Watching the exchange, Emma realized she was still holding the third body in her arms. She released it and stepped back with a shudder as it joined the others on the floor, landing with a dull thud. The woman's hard eyes swept from her father to Emma and back again.

"Dean, Dean, Dean," she tutted. "You got a _lot_ of 'splainin' to do. But first, who's the jailbait?"

"That's my daughter," he said coolly. His tone was conversational, Emma noted. It reminded her of the time she'd faced him across the threshold of a seedy Seattle hotel room with an Amazon blade concealed in her sleeve. She wondered if this Meg person realized just how dangerous he was when his voice carried that quiet, deadly calm.

His eyes flicked to Emma's, warning her to stay on her guard, stilling the half-formed impulse to ask questions, to move closer to him. Her mouth felt dry, her stomach queasy. Her pulse was throbbing in her throat, too hard and fast for the exertion she'd just put forth. It was an emotional reaction, she realized, her body's instinctive response to a fact that her brain was still trying to process: she'd just choked the life out of a man. A man possessed by a demon, Emma reminded herself. Control. She couldn't match her father's calm, but she could control the trembling of her body, the wild urge to laugh or cry or just cling to his side and never let go. Instead, she moved away from the corpse, picking her way through the tumbled shelving and scattered groceries.

Dean had hung the 'closed' sign on the door and drawn down the blind. He and the woman, Meg, were discussing Emmanuel. No, Emma realized with a jolt of surprise that almost stopped her shaking entirely. Not Emmanuel. Cas. The faith healer waiting outside in the car was the angel Castiel. No wonder her dad had been so tense on the drive east. Emmanuel's true identity raised a horde of new questions, but the look her father had given her meant they would have to wait. She made a conscious effort to shut down her emotions, clinging to the self-control she'd learned as an Amazon initiate.

Things didn't get any better with the angel and a demon sharing the back seat, and bad went straight to worse when they got back to Indiana, only to find Sam's hospital guarded by demons.

"Stay in the car," Dean ordered.

Emma wanted to argue, but her father leaned in close, his voice pitched low.

"You wait until I give the all clear. And if things go south, you get out of here, understand?" He pressed one of his cell phones into her hand, issuing rapid-fire orders.

"You still got that amulet I gave you? Good. Keep it on you. This goes bad, get out of here, get away, call Garth. Got it?"

She nodded, resigned. Sam was dying. Castiel didn't even know who or what he was. The demon Meg couldn't be trusted. Her dad didn't need anything else to worry about.

"Got it." Emma swallowed hard. "I'll wait in the car until you say it's safe."

She passed the time reading John Winchester's journal by flashlight, dozing off every now and then in spite of herself. When her father returned, Emma splashed holy water on him, just in case. Dean recoiled with a yelp of surprise, cold water dripping down his face, but then he nodded his approval of her paranoia.

"Good girl."

* * *

"Look, man, I get it. Meg's not our friend. We don't even have friends. All our friends are dead," Dean concluded bitterly. He opened the driver's side door, indicating the subject was closed for now. A few miles down the road, however, he pulled in at a convenience store. At Sam's questioning look, he indicated the teenager in the back seat with a tilt of his head.

"Just get us a six-pack and a couple bottles of root beer."

It seemed they had something more than Castiel or Meg to talk about. Which was amusing, Sam thought, since he was usually the one to initiate these roadside discussions, usually over Dean's objections. On the other hand, he had no idea what was going on with Emma. Even before his hallucinations and insomnia had landed him in the hospital, he'd been too invested in clinging to what was left of his sanity to pay much attention to the teen.

Dean and Emma were sitting on the hood of the Charger when Sam returned from the errand. He bit back the urge to chuckle at the sight and silently passed out the drinks before making himself comfortable, leaning against the fender. They drank in silence for a minute.

"Emma killed her first demon yesterday," Dean announced. He raised his beer in a mock toast, and Sam followed suit, clinking his bottle against Dean's. After a moment, Emma caught on and dutifully raised her own bottle to theirs to complete the toast.

Sam watched her, understanding dawning. It was one thing to know about monsters. Monsters, witches, demons, all the evil things that stalked a world mostly unaware of their presence. It was another thing to actually fight one to the death.

"How're you doing?" he asked, sympathetic.

"Fine. I'm fine," she bristled, causing his eyebrows to arch at her tone. Clearly she wasn't.

"Sorry. I'd be fine if it had been just a demon," she admitted, her tone plaintive. "But it was a person! I- I killed an innocent man."

"You didn't have a choice," Dean told her with his own gruff version of sympathy. "It could have killed me. Hell, it could have killed me, you, Cas... Then Sam would have died... You get it? You can't save everyone. You did the right thing."

"But why did it wait until that man was dead?" Emma's voice shook. "It could have come out of him any time, but it waited," she whimpered. "It just waited until I'd choked him to death."

"Because demons are evil bastards." Dean's tone was matter-of-fact.

"It might have been testing your strength," Sam mused, "but Dean's right. Demons are twisted. Human life means nothing to them, and if it thought it could make you feel guilty, well," he shrugged, "it would have taken pleasure from that."

"Yeah, like I said, evil bastards. The guy might have died, anyway," Dean added. "Demons burn through meat suits, use them up, wear them out. A lot of times they die, even if you manage to exorcise the demon. It sucks, but it doesn't do any good to beat yourself up about it."

"Yeah. It sucks." The teen's voice sounded very small. She sat huddled in on herself. If ever a kid needed to be comforted, Sam thought, this was a classic example. He pushed off the fender and stood, angling his body to face Dean. Sam tilted his head in Emma's direction, giving Dean a look that clearly said, 'go on...' But Dean shook his head.

Sam's brow furrowed. He gave Dean another look. Dean responded to his brother's prompting with a glare. Sam glared back. Dean finished off his beer in one long gulp, rose to his feet, and stalked off. Sam followed. Once they were several yards away from the car, out of Emma's hearing, Dean turned to face him.

"What?" he demanded, radiating belligerence.

"I don't know, I just think Emma could use some sympathy right now. The old 'suck it up, buttercup' speech is a little harsh, don't you think?" Sam asked.

"Oh, so now you're some kind of parenting expert?" Dean's voice dripped sarcasm.

"No, but come on, would it kill you to give the kid a hug?"

The words seemed to take the fight right out of his big brother. Dean still glared, but Sam could read the hurt in his eyes.

"You think I haven't tried, Sammy?"

Sam was silent for a moment. Battling hallucinations of Lucifer every day, he really hadn't had the energy to pay much attention to Dean's recent parenting efforts. It had to be tough, suddenly having a daughter to raise.

"Okay, well, this is all new for both of you. You've just got to keep trying," he offered, but Dean cut him off.

"Look, Dad wasn't all hugs and rainbows, but we turned out all right."

"Dad wasn't the most demonstrative guy in the world, yeah, but he still hugged us, Dean."

His brother scoffed.

"Not when you were Emma's age, he didn't."

Sam spread his hands, conceding the argument for now. Emma looked up as the brothers walked back to the Charger.

"I'm okay," she said firmly, lifting her chin. "But I don't want to have to stay behind all the time. I want you to train me to hunt. Like your father trained you." She looked from Dean to Sam and back again. "Please. I want to be ready, next time."

"I don't like it," Dean frowned. His voice was rough, a low rasp of disapproval.

"Why not? Because I'm a girl? Your dad let you hunt when you were even younger than me!" Emma protested, indignant at the perceived inequality.

"No, not because you're a girl," his big brother shot back, equally indignant. Then his voice softened. "Because you're my kid and I want you to have a normal life."

Emma shook her head.

"I'm not normal. And it's okay. I don't want a normal life."

"It wouldn't hurt to give her some training," Sam began, hesitant. He thought of Lisa's son, Ben, and how insistent Dean had been that the boy should never even learn to shoot. He'd been equally opposed to training their half-brother Adam. Sam expected resistance. Hell, he half expected Dean to throw a punch, but surprisingly, his big brother looked resigned.

"All right, Freak, we'll train you." Emma smiled and sat up straighter, squaring her shoulders, exhausted but triumphant, but Dean still had a bit of fight left in him. He pointed a finger at her.

"I said we'll train you. That means you obey orders. When I tell you to stay in the car, you stay in the car," he growled, sounding, to Sam, disconcertingly like their father.

"M'kay," Emma yawned.

Sam chuckled. Castiel had healed his body of every last effect of his days-long bout of insomnia; he felt rested and refreshed after his ordeal. By contrast, Emma looked ready to fall asleep right there on the hood of the Charger.

He grinned. The kid would realize what she'd agreed to soon enough.

"I'll drive."


	7. Chapter 7

Sam could hear shots in the distance as he scrolled through a news site on his computer. Dean and Emma were back in the woods behind Rufus Turner's cabin, shooting tin cans off fence posts. The brothers had tacitly divided up Emma's training, with Sam taking charge of hand-to-hand combat. It didn't take a genius, Sam thought, to come to the conclusion that assigning Dean as Emma's sparring partner would be a bad idea. The Amazons trained their initiates in the rudiments of combat so they could murder their fathers. No need for the girl to have to revisit those memories.

Returning from a grocery run later in the day, he found his brother presiding over what looked like half the Winchesters' firearms arsenal spread out on the kitchen table. Emma was busy cleaning a pistol under her dad's watchful eye. Dean was working on another weapon with the casual ease of a lifetime of practice, callused hands moving deftly, barely sparing the gun a glance. Sam frowned as he searched for an alternate place to unpack the grocery bags in the cluttered kitchen. Their father had approached his boys' training with the intensity of a Marine drill sergeant. He could see Dean following that same path with Emma. Well, not while he was around.

"I'm a werewolf!" he announced loudly, brandishing a freezer bag of pizza rolls.

Dean and Emma glanced up, her expression bemused, his brother's skeptical.

"Well, you could use a shave," Dean suggested dryly.

"I'm a werewolf. I'm going to kill you. It's a game," he added for Emma's benefit. "The object is for you to remember the lore. You win, you get chocolate," he added, pulling out a bag of bite-size candy bars.

"What if I lose? Do you kill me?" Emma asked, impassive. Sam blinked. Sometimes it was hard to tell when she was joking.

"I might," he said, his delivery equally deadpan. "Come on. Werewolf..."

"Silver," Emma said promptly.

"Show me what you got," he challenged. It was a hunter's cabin, after all. There ought to be some silver lying around. Emma jumped up and ran to the counter, finally getting into the spirit of the game. She opened a jumbled cutlery drawer.

"I win." She made a playful stabbing motion with the knife she'd found.

Sam snorted.

"With a butter knife? I don't think so."

"Hey, she can bench press three-fifty. She can jam a butter knife through a werewolf's sternum, easy," Dean put in his two cent's worth.

"Ew, gross." Emma was rummaging in the drawer again.

"And a werewolf can turn a person with one bite. Too risky," Sam countered his brother's argument.

"Salad fork?" Emma advanced, jabbing the item in question toward his chest. "Come on, Sam, it's pointy, and I've got super-strength," she wheedled.

"All right, all right." He tore open the bag of candy and tossed one to her.

"Me too," Dean demanded.

Overall, Sam thought the decision to let the teenager train as a hunter was a good one. Emma seemed more engaged with something to occupy her time. Happier. The added attention from Dean probably couldn't hurt, either, as long as his brother didn't follow in their father's footsteps too closely.

The next afternoon he paused in the middle of practicing kicks and blocks with Emma on the overgrown lawn in front of the cabin.

"I'm a wendigo!"

"Um, fire!"

The teen patted her pockets, eyes widening as she realized she didn't have a lighter. Sam stretched out his arms, fingers curled like talons, doing his best to look menacing. With a shriek of laughter, Emma took off running. Grinning, Sam pelted down the dirt road after her. After a few seconds he consciously slowed his longer strides to match her pace so he wouldn't catch up too soon.

After all, running was another good skill for a hunter to have.

When they got back to the cabin, Dean was loading a duffel bag into their latest ride, a faux wood paneled station wagon.

"Garth called. Needs our help in some little burg in Kansas," he announced. "You can come too," he added before Emma had to ask. Sam pulled his brother aside as the teen ran inside to pack her few belongings for the trip

"How are you planning to explain Emma to Garth?"

"No problem, I'll just tell him she's my daughter. Say her mom went nuts, went full-on homicidal maniac or something," Dean grinned. "It's basically the truth."

"You realize Garth's going to think you fathered a kid when you were like, seventeen."

"Huh." Dean's grin only widened as he pondered this. "Beats him thinking she's an Amazon. It'll be fine. Just more proof that I'm a stud," he smirked. Sam looked disgusted.

"Dude. Gross."

* * *

Dean suggested a celebratory round of drinks after they'd managed to kill the Shojo. Sam was reluctant, but Garth, already tipsy, embraced the plan with enthusiasm. Naturally, the lanky hunter got completely bombed within the next half hour. Sam poured him into a taxi cab. Dean flirted with a cocktail waitress while knocking back shots of whiskey. The brothers finally called a cab of their own, rolling in around three o'clock in the morning. Dean fumbled with the keys, dropping them once with a metallic clatter before wrestling the motel door open. Sam tripped over the threshold and narrowly avoided knocking over a lamp.

"Shh," Dean warned in a stage whisper. "You'll wake up the kid."

"Emma?" Sam blinked, belatedly remembering his niece, and the fact that he'd rented a separate room next door.

"No, Miley Cyrus," Dean shot back. "Who d'ya think?"

Sam ignored the sarcasm.

"She's not here," he said. The neon motel sign outside illuminated enough to see that the Winchester brothers were currently the only occupants of the room

"Huh?" Dean flipped the light switch. More blinking ensued.

"She's not here." Dean accused. He glowered at Sam, then stumbled to the bathroom. He pulled the shower curtain aside and peered blearily into the bathtub.

"'The hell is she?"

Sam dutifully searched the closet, but the sight of his brother-now down on hands and knees trying to look under the twin platform beds-was enough to quell the drunken impulse to check inside the mini fridge.

"She prob'ly just went out for a walk," he suggested, trying to apply some logic to the situation.

"At three in the morning? I told her to stay put!" Dean rose from between the beds with some difficulty, his expression a mix of anger and concern.

"It's okay. I'm right here," Emma spoke up from the doorway. "I couldn't sleep, so I-"

"Decided to go out wandering around in the middle of the night?" Dean cut off her explanation. "What, are you stupid? What if somebody... Some _thing_…"

"You're worried I'll get mugged?" Emma scoffed, incredulous. "I'm not human, remember? Somebody tries to mug me, they're in for the shock of their lives. And I'm not stupid," she added with a frown.

"Well, you're not bulletproof, either." Dean's voice rose. "And that, that Shojo was a nasty piece of work. Super strong. Invisible. You'd never see it coming-"

"Unless I was drunk, like you!" Emma fired back. She was trembling, Sam noted, his own drunken haze receding as the conflict escalated. His body had tensed, too, hands unconsciously balling into fists. The confrontation was all too familiar, reminding him of the many times he'd squared off against his own father. He felt a flash of sympathy for Dean. This was what his brother must have felt like, witnessing those long-ago shouting matches. But now he'd taken on their father's role.

"Dean," he began, but his brother wasn't listening.

"That Shojo was going after peoples' kids!"

"Some random beer brewer's kids, not just any kids," Emma protested. "Not me!"

"Dean," Sam tried to interject.

"That's not the point," Dean blustered. "There's demons out there, we got Leviathans gunning for us-"

"I know. I know! We're at war! 'Stay in the car'," Emma mimicked her father's gruff tone, "'Stay in the room!' While you go out and get drunk-" She stopped herself, looking surprised at her outburst, the words that she'd blurted out.

Dean flinched as if she'd struck him.

"Yeah, I drink," he admitted after a moment, "but you don't get to judge me." He'd lowered his voice, but there was a hard undercurrent of self-righteous anger in it that made Sam's hackles rise. It was eerily similar to John Winchester's tone whenever he and his youngest son had clashed.

"You got no right to judge, not until you've seen _half _of what I've seen, you hear me? I'm bustin' my ass out there, saving people, hunting down those bastard Levis, trying to save the damn world again-"

"Dean!" Sam shouted, grabbing his brother by the arms. "Just shut up!"

He opened his mouth to argue, but something stopped him. Probably the look on his face, Sam thought. With his normal inhibitions lowered by alcohol, the minor domestic disturbance had left his eyes, well, not wet, precisely, but the potential was clearly there. Dean's shoulders slumped as the fight went out of him. He shrugged out of his brother's grip, but only so he could place a reassuring hand on Sam's shoulder. Dean turned back to Emma, but the teenager drew herself up to her full height, calling on that rigid self-control the Amazons had instilled in her.

"Look, we're all tired. I'm going to go next door and get some sleep," she said with all the dignity she could muster. She turned away.

Sam didn't have to give his brother a look this time. Dean squeezed his shoulder, apology in the gesture, and followed Emma out the door. When he got to the room next door she was sitting on one of the beds unlacing her boots. Her hair fell over her face, concealing her expression.

"Hey," he said gently, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Emma said tonelessly. Boots off, she curled up on the bed, her back to him. Dean went over and sat on the edge of the mattress.

"No. It's not." He sighed heavily and ran a hand over his face. "I sounded just like my dad used to. You didn't deserve any of that."

"Your dad was a hero. I thought you liked being like him." Her voice was small, but there was a hint of curiosity in it.

He scoffed, an almost silent exhale.

"Not when he was drunk." Hesitantly, he rested his hand on her back. Emma flinched momentarily, but didn't move away, so he left it there, lightly rubbing circles between her shoulder blades.

"'S'okay," she repeated in a drowsy murmur, relaxing by slow increments.

The old digital alarm clock on the bedside table ticked over the minutes and the neon lights outside the window cast an orange-pink glow over the room. Dean sat beside her until she fell asleep.

* * *

Emma slipped out as quietly as she could the next morning, but her father was awake and working on his computer when she returned with a cardboard take-out tray of coffee.

"Thanks." He grabbed a cup and took a drink, grimacing when he realized his mistake.

"Ugh. This one must be yours," Dean said, exchanging Emma's heavily sweetened brew for the other cup in the tray. Fortified with a few bitter, caffeinated sips, he pushed back from the table and reached for his old leather jacket.

"Come on. Need your help with something."

Emma followed him outside, where Dean groaned at the sunlight that assaulted his eyes. He led the teen around to the side of the motel, pointing out a bare patch of white-painted wall.

"There. That'll work. Stand there, against the wall. Good. Hold still."

"Why? What's that for?" she asked as he pulled out a phone and snapped her picture.

"You'll see. Go bang on Sam's door, why don't you? He ought to be awake to enjoy the sunshine, too," he groused, already walking back to the relative dimness of the motel room.

Not long after, Emma looked over her father's shoulder, her lips pursing into a frown of disapproval at the photograph he'd taken of her.

"That's not a very good picture."

"It's not supposed to be." He turned to smirk up at her. "Everybody hates their driver's license photo, trust me."

"Driver's license?" Emma did her best to sound casual, but her interest was definitely piqued.

"Yeah, figured it was about time. What's your middle name?" Dean asked, fingers tapping on the keyboard.

"Uh, I don't have one. Mother Madeline just gave us each the one name. Everything else is just a pseudonym, you know, like when you and Sam pose as FBI agents."

"Your mom didn't even get to name you?"

"No. The Matriarch gets that privilege. I think Mother Madeline had some kind of alphabet theme going on," Emma reminisced with a wry smile. "My sister initiates were Carla, Daphne, Frances, and Georgia."

Dean gave an exaggerated wince.

"Frances, huh? You lucked out. But anyway, you ought to have a middle name. I mean, all the government forms have a space for one," he rationalized. "You got a preference?"

"Um…" Emma frowned, feeling as though she'd been put on the spot. "Do you?" she asked with some trepidation. It didn't seem entirely wise to offer him free rein, though the idea of him picking out a name for her had a certain appeal. But knowing her dad, she might end up with something like Queensryche or Chevrolet.

"Jo," he replied without hesitation.

"Joe is a boy's name," Emma pointed out, skeptical.

"Well, this one was a girl. A hunter, and a damn good one," her dad said gruffly.

"Okay," she nodded slowly, considering. "Yeah. I like it."

A short while later as Sam and Emma were packing the station wagon for the trip back to Montana, Dean pressed the finished forgery into her hand, still warm from the laminator.

"My little girl's first fake ID," he quipped to Sam. "This is such a proud moment."

"This is awesome!" Emma enthused, admiring her dad's handiwork. _Emma Jo Winchester_. Seeing the name in print warmed her, and she beamed. Then she looked closer.

"Wait. This is only a learner's permit."

Dean's eyebrows arched.

"You saying you know how to drive?"

"Well, no, but if it's fake anyway, what does it matter?"

"No fake license until you learn to drive. That's the rule," Dean said firmly, as if such a rule was really on the books somewhere. "Don't worry, I'll teach you." He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "'Soon as I'm not so hungover."


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's note: Ben Lomond High School actually exists although my description of it is made up. I was just going to invent a fictional school for this chapter, but got to browsing around the internet and found the Fighting Scots and the rest is, well, fanfiction. The big steam engine trophy is a real thing, although, again, my description of it is mostly made up. Any characters resembling real people, or events resembling real events, are purely coincidental and no insult to the mighty Fighting Scots is intended. _

_As always, heartfelt thanks to all who have followed, faved, and especially dear to my heart, those who've reviewed!_

* * *

"I'm a demon..."

"You're a dweeb," Emma's dad mumbled through a mouthful of bread, glancing at his brother over the top of the newspaper he was reading.

"Jerk."

"Hands off, demon." Emma held up an anti-possession charm, twirling it in her fingers for a moment. Pocketing the little amulet, she grabbed a salt shaker and tossed a few grains of salt across the table at Sam.

"And also, take that!"

"Ahh! It burns!" Sam snarled, hamming it up. Emma brandished the salt shaker threateningly.

"_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas,_" she intoned, caught up in the game, but when Dean lowered his newspaper to watch she stopped, embarrassed.

"Go on," Dean and Sam chimed. The brothers looked at her expectantly.

"Um…" Emma drew a deep breath. "_Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, draco maledicte. Exor- Ergo-_"

"_Ecclesiam tuam,_" Dean prompted.

"Oh, right. _Ecclesiam tuam,securi tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus..._"

"_Audi nos_!" her dad chimed in. "Adios, demon-dweeb!"

"Good job." Sam smiled. Dean shook out his newspaper.

"I think she's ready."

"Ready for what?" Emma asked, eager for her dad to reveal some new aspect of hunter training.

"Ready for a hunt. Remember that janitor I was telling you about?" he asked his brother.

"The one that drowned in the swimming pool?" Sam recalled. "What about him?"

"Another death, same swimming pool. A student, this time. Freaky thing is, he was on the swim team. 'Jason Hargitay, two-time all-district champion, five hundred yard freestyle'," he read aloud.

"Yeah, not a very likely drowning victim. Might be a vengeful spirit," Sam frowned, considering.

"That's what I was thinking. Let's go."

Emma could feel her body practically buzzing with excitement, electricity running through her veins. She packed her pink suitcase, forcing herself to gather her clothes and fold them methodically. Then she was launching herself off the porch of the cabin and throwing the suitcase into the back of the AMC Pacer wagon. She'd adopted Dean's disdain for the bulbous 'family truckster', but it was still a thrill to be allowed to practice driving on the back roads around Whitefish, Montana.

"Can I drive?" she asked, expecting a refusal and blinking in surprise when her dad tossed her the keys.

"Yeah, for a bit. We'll switch off when we get to the interstate."

Emma buckled her seatbelt and made a minute adjustment to the rearview mirror, acutely conscious of Sam in the back seat, where she normally rode. Technically, he was her first passenger. Her dad, riding shotgun as driving instructor, didn't really count.

* * *

Once they reached Ogden, Utah, Emma had to stay behind in the motel room while Dean and Sam split up to question the county coroner and Jason Hargitay's family. She didn't really mind. She couldn't exactly pose as an insurance claims agent, after all.

The brothers returned earlier than she expected, disgruntled after the grieving father had threatened to call the police on Sam.

"This guy Landon Hargitay must be some kind of bigwig," Dean grumbled.

"Yeah, he owns a big chunk of the local real estate, controlling shares in a lot of businesses in and around the state. A real high roller," Sam frowned. "He said he had the chief of police on speed dial, was going to have me thrown in jail for running an insurance scam." He shrugged. "I believed him."

"Yeah, we need to step lightly," Dean agreed. "No point in trying to talk to the local officials if Hargitay has them all in his pocket. And you should probably keep out of the guy's sight."

"You think he's covering up something?"

"Wealthy fat cat like that's always got some kind of skeleton in his closet," her father said cynically. He turned to Emma. "There's a swim meet tomorrow morning at the Hargitay kid's school. You can talk to the students, see what sort of dirt you can dig up on Jason Hargitay."

* * *

Emma couldn't help but stare as she walked into the lobby of Ben Lomond High School. This was what her dad and Sam kept promising her. School. A normal teenager's daily routine.

"Home of the Fighting Scots. They've got bagpipes, for chrissakes," Dean scoffed. "As if a regular marching band wasn't dorky enough. Although..." He paused, considering. "Actually, bagpipes are kind of awesome."

Emma stopped in front of a large trophy, proudly on display on a wooden pedestal. Unlike the other awards displayed in glass cabinets along the walls, this was a sculpture of two antique trains, meeting head-to-head on a railroad track. The dark metal sculpture was more than three feet long.

"The Iron Horse? What's that all about?"

"That's what they called the old steam engines," Dean explained. "This must be some kind of football rivalry thing, you know, whichever school wins the big game gets to keep the weird choo-choo trophy for the next year. Football is a big deal. Swimming isn't nearly as big a draw," he opined, but as it turned out, he was wrong.

The air in the aquatics center was humid and stuffy and smelled of chlorine. The bleachers on the home side were packed, but the mood was strangely subdued for a sporting event. Emma and her father found seats, the teen still staring curiously at everything around her. There were flowers and hand-made posters: _We Love You Jason_ and _Rest In Peace._

"Bunch of vultures," her father muttered, displaying more of his cynicism. "Half these people are just here out of morbid curiosity."

The crowd stood for a recording of the National Anthem, and then a bagpiper played Amazing Grace in honor of the departed swimmer.

"This is more like a funeral than a swim meet," Sam whispered as he joined them. "Jason Hargitay's family doesn't seem to be in attendance, so I figured it was okay for me to come in," he explained.

Swimmers were stepping up onto the starting blocks, and the whistle blew to start the first race.

"EMF?" her dad queried, and his brother nodded.

"Off the scale. We've definitely got some kind of spirit manifestation."

Dean gave Emma a nudge and a nod of encouragement.

"You're up. Mingle. Pick up some gossip."

She felt awkward and conspicuous as soon as she left her seat. Teenagers crowded around the ends of the bleachers and a steady flow of spectators moved between the seating area and a small concession stand. Emma strolled along and bought a cup of coffee. There was no reason to be nervous, she reminded herself. To an onlooker, she was just an ordinary student.

The somber mood lingered over the aquatics center. Kids huddled in small groups and she caught whispers of 'Jason' over and over, along with another name: 'Kirsten'. One of the girls on Ben Lomond High's swim team sat on the bench, the center of her own protective huddle of grief and sympathy. Emma soon learned from overheard snippets of conversation that she was Jason's girlfriend, Kirsten.

Emma's eyes skittered past the boys on the team, their bare legs and chests repellent and fascinating in equal measure. Some were skinny, some pudgy. A few, the older ones, sported more mature, muscular physiques. Emma felt her cheeks flush and she focused furiously on her styrofoam cup of coffee. It was all a bit much to take in for a girl raised exclusively in the company of women. And her dad and Sam had been almost fanatically modest since she'd started traveling with them. She'd never been around boys her own age, especially not barely-dressed boys, she thought defensively. And her time with female peers was almost equally limited. So much for casual mingling with normal teenagers.

She willed herself to calm down. She wasn't here to socialize; she had a job to do. Emma picked a group of girls and moved over to join them, drawing a deep, steadying breath. They were about her own age, comfortingly familiar, at least on the surface. Blonde and clean-cut, they reminded her of her sister initiates.

"Hi. Do you go to Ben Lomond?" she asked, trying for confident but sounding nervous and awkward to her own ears.

"Um, yeah?"

They giggled and Emma felt her cheeks flush. Of course they did, it was obvious from the school colors they were all wearing. She was an idiot.

"My name's Emma. I'm uh, visiting my, uh, cousins," she soldiered on, forcing a smile and getting awkward smiles in return.

"Oh. That's nice," one remarked, noncommittal. Another gave Emma a look, up and down.

"Maybe you ought to go hang out with them."

More nervous giggles. The girls turned to watch the swimmers, bodies angling away from Emma, subtly but clearly excluding her from the group. She backed off, replaying that slow, assessing look in her mind. Somehow, she'd failed to measure up. Emma glanced down, seeing herself through their eyes. No make-up, no jewelry except for the necklace her mother had given her as a child and one of her dad's chunky sports watches concealing the tribal scar on her wrist. Bargain outlet jeans instead of a name brand, and already showing signs of wear. Clean enough, but there were stains at the hems and on the knees and the seat, ground-in grass and dirt from her sparring sessions with Sam.

Emma's fingers brushed the amulet concealed in her pocket, the lighter she'd made a habit of carrying since Sam had yelled 'I'm a wendigo!' and chased her through the woods. She smiled, the rejection suddenly a badge of honor.

'Kind of hard to find common ground with regular kids when your family hunts monsters for a living,' her dad's words came back to her, and her smile widened.

She was a hunter, or at least a hunter-in-training, living a life the average high school kid couldn't even imagine.


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's note: Winter storms tend to totally shut down my little corner of the world. I get days off work, you get speedy-quick updates. Enjoy! Thank you so much to those of you who take the time to review. I really appreciate the encouragement!_

* * *

Emma scanned the crowd around the swimming pool, looking at each group of high school students with a critical eye. Most were clean-cut, from relatively well-to-do families. A few, clustered at the far end of the bleachers, seemed a bit rougher around the edges. Maybe she'd have better luck trying to talk to them.

She really didn't fit in with this group, either, though, she thought, assessing them. Their outfits were less preppy, more like her own clothing, but their attitude was tougher, jaded. These teenagers seemed to posses a sort of world-weary sophistication that she lacked. Emma thought of her dad, the time he'd showed up unexpectedly at her mother's house, dapper in a dark tailored suit, playing the role of an investment banker. It was a marked contrast to the man she'd come to know, the gritty blue-collar warrior. She could play a part too, she decided.

Emma put a bit of a slouch in her step as she joined the huddle. She didn't attempt an introduction, just sipped her coffee and watched the swimmers with bored detachment. The other kids looked over at her, but soon resumed their conversation. Their attention was on the crowd rather than the swimmers, she quickly realized, and on mocking the popular kids.

"Ugh, look at Cyndi Champlin, with her mascara all smudged from crying over poor Jason," said one of the girls in a sarcastic sing-song. Maybe, Emma reasoned, Jason Hargitay wasn't as universally loved as the displays of grief would seem to indicate.

"Vultures," Emma chimed in, repeating her dad's remark with, she hoped, a sufficiently cynical delivery. The others glanced at her, neutral bordering on hostile, but then the girl who'd just spoken nodded agreement.

"They like the drama. Mourning for Jason Hargitay is, like, the latest fad." Her eyes swept over Emma. "I haven't seen you around before. Freshman?"

"Um, yeah?" Emma replied, hesitation making the answer into a question. Did she really look like a freshman? One of the boys snickered, but the girl simply nodded. The group went back to ignoring her. Progress, she thought wryly. At least they weren't shutting her out.

A low murmur rose, stirring through the warm, syrupy air. The next event was about to begin, members of the girl's swim teams mounting the starting blocks. A scattering of applause broke out as Kirsten took her place. Emma stared with frank curiosity at the girl whose boyfriend had drowned in this very pool less than a month ago. Hair hidden under a tight-fitting silicone swim cap, her face looked pale and tense.

"Is that the dead boy's girlfriend?" she prompted.

"Yeah. Kirsten Steadman," her informant supplied.

"That's so sad," Emma blurted, watching the girl waiting stoically to compete. Then, remembering her role, she commented, "It's kind of weird that a champion swimmer would just drown like that, huh?"

"The really weird thing is this other girl Jason was dating drowned, too."

"Yeah, they pulled her body out of the reservoir like, six months ago," the boy spoke up.

Emma couldn't hide her surprise.

"Really? Who was she? I mean, what was her name?"

"I dunno." He shrugged. "She went to Ogden High."

* * *

The swim meet ended, the crowd moving sluggishly out of the aquatics center, as if reluctant to miss a moment of drama. Dean, Sam, and Emma loitered on the bleachers.

"I found out Jason was dating another girl. Shelley Stevens. Or maybe Stevenson. Nobody I talked to seemed to know her very well," she reported, excited and pleased with her success as an interviewer. She'd drifted through the crowd, talking to students from Ben Lomond and their rival, Ogden High School, and gathered more information on Jason Hargitay's apparently complicated love life.

"Jason was cheating on Shelley with Kirsten. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, he was a player," Emma said disapprovingly. The slang term drew amused looks from her dad and Sam, but they listened without comment as she went on, "Shelley drowned in a lake near here, Pineview Reservoir." Her eyes widened. "They say she committed suicide."

"That fits in with a vengeful spirit," Dean began, but their attention was diverted as Kirsten Steadman walked by on the way to the locker room, still surrounded by a gaggle of family, friends, and the simply curious. Two older boys from the swim team preceded the group, clearing a path through the lingering crowd. Emma couldn't help but flick glances their way. Boys her own age were almost alien in their unfamiliarity. She stole another glimpse and blinked, puzzled. The young men's breath was visible, puffs of steam hanging in the too-warm air. Kirsten's and some of the others, too, she saw, as if the temperature around them had suddenly plummeted. Her dad's muttered curse made it clear he'd seen it as well.

Then Kirsten broke away from the group, skidding wildly across the slick tiled floor as if she'd been pushed by some invisible force. She teetered for a long moment at the edge of the deep end of the pool, then tumbled clumsily, a sprawl of slender limbs plunging beneath the surface of the turquoise water. There was a long moment of quiet after the splash, the onlookers stunned, unsure of what was going on.

Sam's booted feet echoed loudly off the bleachers as he descended in three great bounds. He flung off his coat as he crossed the floor at a dead run and launched himself into the water, breaking the surface with barely a splash.

The temperature had dropped twenty degrees in an instant. Moisture condensed, making every surface a slippery hazard as they picked their way down the bleachers. Emma swore she could see frost riming the lip of the pool. The cavernous room was noisy now, echoing with a babble of confused voices. Somebody screamed, high-pitched and hysterical. The two senior boys and a girl who'd been walking close to Kirsten dove into the pool to join Sam's rescue effort.

He broke the surface, eyes wide as he searched out Dean in the crowd at the side of the pool. He didn't speak, just dragged air into his lungs and plunged under the water again after making eye contact with his brother. Through the clear, chlorinated water, Emma could see Kirsten's body flailing, the rescuers struggling, just out of reach of the girl. Some invisible force was holding her under, holding them back.

She started to shrug out of her jacket, feeling the urge to do something to help, but her father stopped her, grabbing her by the elbow and propelling her toward the doors. Slipping and sliding, almost falling, they made it out of the pool area and sprinted down the hall.

"We need iron," Dean yelled back to Emma. Iron would disperse a ghost. But where would they find iron in a school building? She struggled to keep up with his longer strides, her heart sinking even as it pounded from exertion. The linoleum tiled corridor seemed to stretch endlessly, lined with lockers. Metal lockers, but not the kind of metal they needed to fend off the ghostly force that held the girl under the water. But whatever weapon her dad might have in the station wagon, it would be too late. Emma imagined Sam hauling Kirsten's limp body out of the pool. Rescue workers crouching over her, trying to restart her heart and lungs. Failing. She was going to drown, just like the others.

Her father must have come to the same conclusion. His footsteps slowed as they reached the lobby. He turned in a tight half-circle, desperately scanning the area for something they could use. The delay gave Emma time to catch up. She skidded to a stop by the Iron Horse trophy just as Dean's eyes fell on the sculpture of the two antique steam engines.

"Is it iron?" Emma gasped.

"It's worth a try!" His eyebrows shot up as Emma took hold of the sculpture, tearing it loose from the plinth with a loud, protesting sound of splintering wood.

"Hey!" A few bystanders reacted to the vandalism, unaware of what was happening back in the pool. They wouldn't be able to understand even if they did know.

"Out of the way!" Dean bellowed.

They pelted back toward the pool, Emma shouldering the trophy like a big, ungainly javelin, Dean right behind her. She felt her father's hand on the back of the trophy, steadying it, offering support, assistance she didn't need. Instinct, she thought fleetingly. Or maybe he was trying to cover for her inhuman strength. It didn't matter. Her focus was on saving Kirsten, on changing the tragic outcome she'd pictured in her mind.

The crowd was still milling around in the aquatics center, Sam and the others still fighting uselessly against the malevolent force pinning the girl at the bottom of the pool. Emma planted her feet, skidding to a stop on the wet tile, and hurled the trophy into the pool. She felt her dad push along with her, adding his human strength to the throw. The Iron Horse plunged down through the water, straight as a spear thrown by an Amazon warrior.

Something snapped, a deep, echoing throb that stilled the surface of the pool, then rippled out from the struggle, sloshing water over the tile floor. The chill air seemed to shudder, and the temperature returned to normal. Sam burst upward in an enormous splash, Kirsten wrapped in his arms. He transferred her gently to one of the senior boys.

Bystanders reached out, helping the swimmers lift the girl out of the pool. The crowd was hushed, anxious. Kirsten coughed, then drew in a deep, gasping breath, shockingly audible in the waiting silence. The gathering erupted, some shouting, some crying, all excitement and joyous relief. Emma let out the breath she'd been unconsciously holding. They'd done it! Kirsten was safe. She was alive! They'd saved her.

Her smile faded as she looked around for Sam. Where was he? She turned to question her father, but he'd left her side. Emma turned, fearful again. Had the spirit targeted Sam? Was there some new danger? But there he was, clambering out of the pool, unnoticed by the crowd. Dean was right there beside him, wrapping him in his coat, an arm flung around his shoulders. Her father's own coat collar was turned up, concealing his face as he leaned into his younger brother, sheltering and protective. Hiding him, Emma realized. Sam's coat shielded his face, her dad's brotherly embrace keeping him hunched, half crouched as he hustled him out the door, disguising his height.

It wasn't fair, Emma thought, even as she became aware of the teenagers holding up cell phones, snapping photographs. News of the bizarre incident would spread all over town and beyond. She understood that they needed to lay low, not draw attention, but it was still so unfair. Sam and her dad were heroes. _She_ was a hero. But no one could know about it. Even without the threat of the rescue making the evening news, of the Leviathans seeing it and tracking them down, Emma realized, they had to hide what they'd done. They had to preserve people's illusions, their ignorance. It was all part of being a hunter, keeping people safe from things they didn't even know were out to get them.

She grinned, high spirits restored, and turned to follow after her heroes.


	10. Chapter 10

"So it sounds as if Shelley Stevens is our vengeful spirit."

Dean glanced over at his brother. Sam was still soaked from his unscheduled dip in the pool, wet locks of hair trailing over his coat collar. Good thing they weren't riding in the Impala.

"Yeah, I can see her wanting to off Jason and the rival girlfriend," he agreed, "but how does the janitor tie in?"

"No idea," Sam admitted. "Why don't you go interview the widow? I'll try to find out more about Shelley."

Dean pulled into the parking lot of the Deseret Motel. A pair of cheerful cartoon bees adorned the sign along with the slogan 'Buzz On In!'

"Can I come with you?" Emma asked her dad as she clambered out of the station wagon. He frowned briefly, considering.

"No. Sorry. You're not believable as an insurance agent. Stay here and help Sam-"

"But I wouldn't be an insurance agent," she argued in a rush as she followed the brothers into the motel room, where the bee theme continued with a wallpaper border and chunky ceramic lamp bases shaped like beehives.

"Yeah? So what's your cover story?" Dean folded his arms, clearly prepared to be unimpressed by whatever the teenager came up with. In the bathroom doorway, Sam turned, a towel in his hands, and listened in, curious.

"Well, I, um…" Emma stopped herself. It was a perfectly reasonable question. She couldn't allow it to fluster her. "I'll be a- A reporter for the school newspaper. Jason Hargitay's death got a lot of attention," she hurried on. "It's only fair that the school pay tribute to the janitor, too." Her confident delivery faltered a bit at the end. "Um, don't you think so?"

"Huh. The widow might actually buy it…" Dean exchanged a look with Sam, who shrugged.

"So I can come along?"

"Not so fast. What's _my_ cover story?"

This question didn't require any deliberation at all.

"That's easy," Emma scoffed. "You're my dad."

Sam chuckled, but Dean's look quelled any joke he might have made.

"Okay, you can come with," he said gruffly. Ignoring Emma's glee, he turned back to his brother. "Where do we find the old broad?"

"There's a case file on my laptop." Still chuckling, Sam shut the bathroom door.

* * *

"It's nice that you want to do an article about my Ray. He always liked working at the school."

They were seated in the living room of what Emma thought of as a 'normal' home, somewhere mid-way between the pristine, tastefully decorated house her mother, Lydia, had rented and the run-down, tacky motels the Winchesters habitually stayed in. Cookies were arranged on a platter in the middle of the coffee table. Nervous, but trying not to show it, Emma perched on the edge of a sofa cushion while her father sat beside her, completely at ease as he helped himself to a cookie.

He had guided them through introductions and small talk with the practiced charm she remembered from his brief visit to her mother's house when she was a toddler. Now Emma conducted her interview, wondering all the while if she was being convincing in her role of aspiring journalist. She cleared her throat and asked her next question.

"How long did your husband work at Ben Lomond High, Mrs. Thorkelson?"

"Since 2009. Money was tight after Ray retired. His pension didn't cover my medical bills," the elderly woman indicated the walker parked next to her chair, "so it was a blessing when he was hired as the night janitor."

"So did he interact much with the students, if he worked nights?" Emma veered off her prepared script, searching for some link to Jason Hargitay.

"Oh, yes, he knew a lot of the youngsters," Mrs. Thorkelson reminisced. "He was responsible for locking up after practices and rehearsals and such. Another cookie?" she urged. Father and daughter both complied, Dean eagerly, Emma somewhat less so, distracted by the notes she was scribbling on a pad of paper.

"Was your husband, um, locking up the swimming pool when he, uh, pass- passed away?" Emma stammered.

"I suppose so." Mrs. Thorkelson pulled a tissue from her sweater sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. "I still can't believe he's gone. And then young Jason. That boy was spoiled rotten," she said, her voice quavering, "but he didn't deserve to die."

"What about Shelley Stevens, Mrs. Thorkelson?" Dean's voice was sharp. Emma looked over at her father, eyebrows arching. The question was unexpected.

"The girl who drowned out at Pineview Reservoir? What does she have to do with my husband?"

"I was hoping you could tell us."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I thought you were here to write a memorial for the school newspaper." The widow's tears had dried. Emma noted bright spots of color on the powdery skin of her cheeks. The question had clearly upset her.

"Yes, ma'am," Emma agreed hastily, trying to bring the interview back on track. "Did Mr. Thorkelson have any, uh, hobbies?"

"Like swimming?" Dean inquired around a mouthful of cookie.

"Dad!" Emma was appalled by his lack of tact.

"I won't listen to another word of this!" Mrs. Thorkelson chimed in. "Please leave at once."

"I'm so sorry-" Emma began, but her father cut her off.

"Look, lady, Kirsten Steadman almost drowned this morning. Jason Hargitay. Shelley Stevens. Your husband! How many more are going to die?

"Kirsten? Another one?" Now the woman's face was pale, the powdery texture of her skin reminding Emma of chalk.

"Almost," Dean clarified. He gestured to the teen sitting wide-eyed next to him. "My daughter saved her life."

Emma felt her own face flush. Her father was giving her the credit for fending off the spirit. She didn't protest, knowing he was simplifying things for the sake of the elderly woman. But those two simple words, 'my daughter', made her breath catch in her throat. Dean Winchester had just claimed her as part of his family. It was a statement of fact, no more, Emma reminded herself sternly. He'd never once avoided calling her his daughter. His mistake, his responsibility. But this time, in front of a civilian, it sounded like praise. Validation. She ducked her head over her notes, hiding her blush behind a fall of hair.

"What's the connection, Mrs. Thorkelson? What did your husband have to do with all this?" Dean's voice was still full of gravel, but quiet now, almost gentle as he questioned the old woman.

"It wasn't his fault! It was Landon Hargitay! He bullied my Ray into helping him," she wailed, holding her crumpled tissue to her mouth.

"Shelley Stevens didn't drown in the reservoir, did she?" Dean prompted.

Mrs. Thorkelson shook her head silently. She clutched her tissue as if it could serve as a barrier to hold back the truth, but Emma's father was already piecing it together.

"The Hargitay kid was seeing her on the sly. What, did she meet him at the pool after hours?"

Another mute nod, and then a torrent of words.

"Landon Hargitay spoiled that boy. Everyone in town did. He had the run of the school! Ray was sure he had his own key. He was always catching Jason sneaking his friends in. Girls, too, sometimes. And even alcohol," Mrs. Thorkelson pronounced with deep disapproval.

"What are you saying? That Jason drowned Shelley in the pool?" Emma blurted out, forgetting herself in the horror of this new possibility. Ghosts and demons were one thing, she thought. The prospect of one average, human, clean-cut high school kid killing another one in cold blood was somehow much worse. Mrs. Thorkelson hitched in a startled breath that sounded like a whimper.

"My guess would be it was an accident," Dean soothed, shooting Emma a quelling look.

"They'd been drinking. Ray said the boy was hysterical when he found them." The widow squared her shoulders. "My husband would never have agreed to what he did if he thought Jason Hargitay was guilty of murder."

"He just helped the kid's dad cover up Shelley Stevens' death, am I right?" There was iron in her father's quiet inquiry. Mrs. Thorkelson gave another reluctant nod.

"They got Jason calmed down. They-" she made another whimpering noise, then collected herself and went on, still clutching the damp and crumpled Kleenex. "They bundled the girl into the trunk of Landon's car. Ray drove Jason home. Then the men went out to Pineview Reservoir and… Disposed of the body. I'm sorry you had to hear this," the elderly woman said, turning to Emma. "My husband was ashamed of what he did. He carried that guilt to his grave."

"But Landon took care of those unpaid medical bills," Dean said shrewdly. The widow shifted uneasily in her chair.

"He did. And he convinced Ray that he was doing the right thing."

* * *

"I found out where Michelle Stevens is buried," Sam announced when they returned to the motel.

"You know what comes next," Dean prompted Emma, who nodded solemnly.

"Wait until dark, dig up the coffin, salt and burn the bones," she recited the lore. This might be routine for her father and his brother, but Emma couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement at the prospect of finishing her first hunt.

Dean was in high spirits too as he bustled around the kitchenette, pulling out bowls and spoons and setting the folding card table that served as the suite's dining area.

"Dinner is served," he announced, plunking a cereal box and a quart of whole milk down on the table.

"Cereal? For dinner?" Emma was skeptical.

"Not just any cereal," her father said with the air of a mentor passing down a time-honored secret, dumping a heaping portion into a chipped ceramic bowl. "This is Cocoa Puffs. Trust me, Candy Crush, you're going to go coo-coo for it."

Cocoa meant chocolate. That was good enough for Emma. She sat down opposite her father and poured herself a bowl.

"...Oh, wow."

Dean paused in shoveling down cereal just long enough to grin at her reaction.

"Awesome, huh?"

Emma grunted an affirmative, too engrossed in this new taste sensation to speak until she'd finished most of her first bowl and noticed the milk changing color.

"It turns the milk _chocolate_," she breathed, reverent. "This is amazing!"

"Told you." Dean was pouring his second bowl. Emma snatched the box as soon as he set it down and dumped more cereal into her own bowl.

"How come we've never had cereal for dinner before?" she asked around a mouthful of the chocolatey orbs, the accusation in her tone clear even though the words themselves were muffled.

"Hey, It's not like hunters have a dental plan. Cocoa Puffs are a sometimes food," Dean warned. "Sammy?" The younger Winchester brother was watching the father-daughter feeding frenzy with a mixture of amusement and disgust.

"I'll pass."

Dean shrugged.

"More for us."

* * *

Gravedigging might be routine, but it was also backbreaking work. It was clear that the Winchester brothers welcomed the addition of a third person. Especially one with superhuman strength. Emma did her share with gusto, giving her father an incredulous look when he passed the shovel to Sam.

"Dad. It's my turn," she reminded him.

Dean took her hands in his, examining them critically in the garish, blue-white light of the propane lantern. The skin of her palms was soft in contrast to the rough layers of calluses her father's hands bore, and red where she'd gripped the handle of the shovel.

"That's enough. You're going to wind up with blisters. We're almost there, anyway."

"I feel sorry for Shelley," Emma said softly after Dean had pried off the lid of the coffin and she and Sam had doused the corpse liberally with both rock salt and gasoline.

"Kid got a raw deal," her father agreed. He lit a scrap of paper with his lighter, let it fall into the open grave. "Focus on the ones you saved," he advised Emma over the crackle of the flames.

* * *

She took his advice, replaying Kirsten Steadman's rescue from the swimming pool in her mind while she got ready for bed. The motel bathroom stubbornly carried on the bee theme with a shower curtain printed with bumblebees. Emma dressed in pajamas and brushed her teeth. Her dad and Sam were seated in a pair of sagging armchairs, she saw when she came out of the bathroom, talking quietly in the light from a single low-watt bulb. The usual concerns, Emma figured. Dick Roman and the rest of the Leviathans. The angel, Castiel. His demon caretaker, Meg.

Things she couldn't do anything about, Emma thought philosophically. She sat crosslegged on one of the beds, idly tracing the honeycomb pattern of the worn chenille bedspread. Dean and Sam's conversation was a low, comforting rumble in the background. Her shoulders ached from the unaccustomed exertion of digging, but it was a pleasant sensation, a souvenir of the work she'd shared with the rest of her family. It had been a good hunt, she reminded herself, a good day's work. A long day's work, too. It was well past midnight. Emma was drowsy, warm, and content, but she resisted sleep, savoring the events of the day.

"Oh!" The sensation hit like a jolt of electricity, so sudden and unexpected that she cried out without thinking. There was a flash of light, bright in the dimness of the room, leaving an imprint of the Amazon sigil on the inside of her eyelids when she blinked. Emma clamped her hand over her wrist reflexively, but the glow leaked out between her fingers.

Her dad crossed the room in a few quick strides, his brother crowding close behind him.

"Emma! You okay? What the hell was that?" he barked.

"I don't know." Cautiously, she exposed the mark on her wrist. The Amazon-inflicted brand had healed weeks ago, leaving scar tissue that she usually kept covered with a watch her father had given her. The light that had flared from the scar was already fading, leaving the area around it reddened. The faint tracery of veins stood out starkly against the red skin.

"It's like her eyes," Sam said, and she nodded agreement. Emma had never seen her own eyes flare in the heat of battle or strong emotion, but she'd seen her sister initiates. The effect on her wrist was similar, and like her eyes' inhuman response, it was short-lived.

"So that's normal?" Dean's harsh growl revealed his concern.

"I don't know," she repeated. "No one ever said anything about the brand doing anything. I thought it was just another part of the initiations. You know, making us endure pain."

"Does it hurt now?" Sam asked.

"She's not Harry Potter," Dean scoffed at his brother's suggestion. He turned back to Emma. "Does it hurt now?"

"No. It just startled me," Emma insisted, growing embarrassed by their scrutiny. "I'm fine. Look, it's over." She held up her wrist, back to its usual coloration, to demonstrate.

"It's never happened before, right? Why now? You sure nobody ever mentioned it? Maybe you dozed off during Amazon 101," her father accused.

"No. I don't know. No!" Emma protested the rapid-fire interrogation. "It's probably nothing." But Sam was already sliding his laptop into its carrying case.

"We're leaving? But why? You think the tribe might be coming for me?" Emma's heart raced, but she couldn't tell if it was from fear or excitement. _My mom_, she thought, and her stomach gave a lurch.

"I don't know. And until I do know what's going on, we're hitting the road. Pack up."

"But I thought you wanted to hunt them all down, back in Seattle." She'd always taken pride in the speed and efficiency with which she could pack her belongings whenever her father declared it was time to move on, but now Emma sat in the middle of the bed, motionless as Dean and Sam stuffed clothing and books into duffel bags.

"I thought we hunted monsters! Why are we running away from them?"

Dean turned to reply, exasperation clear in his expression, but Sam spoke up first.

"Emma, whatever else the Amazons might be, they're the ones who raised you. If it came to a fight, it might be your sisters. Maybe even your birth mother. Do you really want to go there if there's any other choice?"

She stared at him. The syllables were plain English, not some Latin incantation. They strung together into words that ought to have made sense, but it took a long moment for their impact to sink in. When it did, her stomach felt as if it was trying to climb into her throat, the maybe-fear, maybe-anticipation feeling resolving into pure nausea. Her own mother, coming for her. Not for a reunion, but to kill her. To try and kill her father.

He put a hand on her shoulder, driving away the mental image of Lydia breaking down the motel room door with an Amazon blade in her hands poised to strike. He gave her a nudge toward the closet where she'd left her suitcase.

"Let's go."


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's note: happy new year and heartfelt thanks to all who've been so kind as to leave reviews. I appreciate every word. _

_I started this story with the idea of paralleling the events of season seven. The idea was to ease back into writing. In hindsight, easing into an action/adventure plot was a bad idea. Thanks for bearing with me. I'll be branching out and giving you a whole new storyline once we wind up the season seven based one. Thanks again for giving a noob a chance._

_Several bits of dialogue in this chapter are lifted verbatim from the episode written by Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming. As always, I don't claim to own any of it. _

* * *

"How's the wrist?"

"Same as the last time you asked. I mean, it's fine," Emma clarified quickly as Dean shot her a warning look over the top of the newspaper he was reading. Her scar hadn't flared again since they'd left Utah almost a week before. It was just there on her wrist, inert, like scar tissue was supposed to be. Emma wondered how long her father was going to keep bringing up the subject.

"Okay, well, keep it covered," he said gruffly, the same caution he'd repeated endlessly, she thought, since he'd planned this meeting. Emma rolled her eyes, but only after she made sure he was back behind his newsprint barrier.

They were in a restaurant on the California coast, a nice place with a view of the harbor. Emma fidgeted as her dad and his brother discussed the latest archeological dig Dick Roman was funding. They were here to meet a hunter, which was interesting in and of itself, but this particular hunter was named Annie Hawkins. Emma couldn't help but feel excited to meet a female in the business.

But Annie was uncharacteristically late. Sam and her dad had both remarked about it already, and Dean had tried, unsuccessfully, to reach her by cell phone. Now he folded his newspaper and turned to Sam.

"Are we being stood up?"

"Yeah," Sam said slowly, consideringly. He rose from his seat, abandoning the menu he'd been scanning. "Let's hope that's all this is."

Emma's anticipation only increased as she followed the others out of the restaurant. This wasn't some ordinary woman with ordinary, trivial reasons for missing a lunch date. Annie might be in trouble. The Winchesters' kind of trouble. Emma took her place in the back seat of the car, sighing impatiently when her father and uncle lingered outside in the parking lot.

They were discussing something, she thought, straining her ears to eavesdrop. It was always something. Leviathans. Demons. The Amazons. Emma herself. But this time it was her dad's battered old flask.

"I got to get a refill," she heard him say, tipping it to indicate that it was empty.

"You know what, man? Why don't you just pack it away for a while?" Sam suggested. "All it does is remind us of him, you know?"

The 'him' Sam referred to was Bobby Singer. Emma knew that much. Bobby was another common topic in these conversations that the brothers carried on when they assumed she couldn't overhear, or right in front of her when they assumed she wouldn't understand. Or silently, a significant look or a casual-seeming gesture that conveyed a world of information. A world that excluded her. Emma huffed out another sigh and rapped on the window.

"Can we get moving? You two natter on like a pair of _aspis adelphai_," she scolded them. They climbed into the car, but Emma's triumph was short-lived.

"_Adel_-what now? My ancient Greek is a little rusty. Okay, totally rusty." Dean met her eyes in the rearview mirror and Sam turned to look at her, always eager to learn a new snippet of lore.

Emma felt her face heat up under their scrutiny. She'd called them shield-sisters, an Amazon term for members of the tribe who shared an exceptionally close bond. She'd only heard it once in passing during her training, but Emma was pretty sure it didn't imply a platonic relationship.

"You know, um, gossipy old women," she improvised, staring determinedly out the side window to hide the blush she knew was coloring her cheeks. She just knew the brothers were exchanging one of those looks right now. Her dad snorted.

"Let's go check out Annie's hotel room," he said, changing the subject.

* * *

Emma stood in the kitchen area of Annie's suite, studying the map, photographs, and newspaper clippings pinned up on the wall. The layout of the collection of evidence was remarkably similar to Sam's notes on the Leviathans pinned up on the wall of Rufus' cabin in Montana. Annie's research had uncovered multiple disappearances, the most recent ones being teenagers. Dean passed a real estate advertisement to Sam. Emma moved to stand behind him at the whitewashed kitchen table, reading over his shoulder.

"It's creepy," she said with approval. The old Van Ness mansion looked like the set of a classic horror movie.

"Get this," said Sam, "a couple months back, someone put it on one of those 'most haunted houses in America' lists.

"Let me guess – that's when the teenagers started to go missing," Dean hazarded.

"Yeah." Sam glanced back at Emma, then turned to his brother.

They were deciding, Emma thought, whether to take her along or not. The silent exchange made her want to swear in frustration.

"I'm right here," she reminded them. Her dad ignored her comment, but apparently he'd made up his mind in her favor.

"I say we get rolling."

* * *

The Van Ness place was definitely creepy, even in the light of day. Emma was thrilled, and slightly nervous, when her father passed her a sawed-off shotgun from the trunk of the car. She'd practiced enough with the weapon to handle it with confidence, but her experience so far was limited to shooting targets behind Rufus' cabin.

They approached the front door, Dean and Sam armed only with flashlights, Emma saw, and couldn't help but feel a little let down. The shotgun she carried was probably overkill since the experienced hunters didn't seem to be expecting trouble. But her dad and his brother weren't really unarmed, she reminded herself. The Winchesters habitually carried any number of concealed weapons.

"Salt shots give a good, wide spray. All you've got to do is aim in the general direction of a ghost and the salt will disperse it, at least for a minute or two," Dean told Emma, repeating lore she'd long since memorized. "Just don't get trigger happy. Make sure me and Sam are out of the line of fire," he warned with a smirk.

How stupid did he think she was? Emma wanted to remind him that she knew how to handle a weapon. She knew how to deal with ghosts. But all she said was, "Okay." Control. A smartass attitude wouldn't impress her father. All that would get her was an order to wait in the car.

Following the brothers into the imposing entryway of the mansion, she was glad she'd kept her mouth shut. Dean and Sam searched the room, working together with the confident ease of years of practice. Emma's focus shifted from trying to prove herself to simply keeping out of their way. They looked everywhere in the old house, eventually finding Annie's cell phone, but no other clues. No bodies, no traces of blood, no other out of place items. Sam's EMF reader warbled almost continuously, flashing red lights.

"There's a whole lot of something going on," he remarked, but as they continued to search, Emma began to wonder if it wasn't a whole lot of nothing. It was dark before they gave up and headed back to the motel.

"Pizza?" Sam suggested as they drove past a pizza parlor just a few doors down from the Crow's Nest Inn.

"I'll go pick it up," Emma volunteered, anticipating an evening of research. If she put herself in charge of dinner, she reasoned, she could be helpful without having to sift through more old newspaper articles and real estate advertisements. The search for Annie Hawkins was turning into a crash course in the boring side of hunting.

"Yeah, Emma, that would be great," Sam said, pulling out his wallet and passing her a few bills before his brother could protest the solo excursion. Emma shot her uncle a grateful look.

"Make sure at least one of those pizzas has some real toppings, not just vegetables," her dad called after her.

* * *

Emma stretched out the errand as long as possible. She frowned as she returned to the Crow's Nest Inn. The car they were using that week was missing from the parking lot. As if on cue, her cell phone chimed as she unlocked the door, indicating a text message. The others had gone back to the Van Ness house. Without her. Emma read the familiar, infuriating instructions: _Stay in the room. _

No, she decided rebelliously, tossing her phone down on the table with the boxes of pizza. Bodega Bay was a waterfront town. In her short life, she'd never been to the beach. The moonlit ocean beckoned, just a few hundred yards away. So her father didn't trust her to participate in whatever he and Sam were up to now. Fine. She'd take a walk along the beach instead. Locking the door behind her, she strode across the parking lot, crossed the road, and was soon taking off her boots to wriggle her toes in the soft, cool sand.

But as fun as walking on the sand and wading in the surf was, the novelty eventually began to wear thin, consumed in the cold of night and the fog drifting in off the bay. Emma made her way back up the main street, the wet legs of her jeans clinging clammily to her calves, gritty with salt and sand.

She paused in the shadows at the side of a tavern as a taxi pulled up to the curb. A couple stepped out of the bar, laughing, their steps unsteady. A big man, the bouncer, Emma guessed, opened the door of the cab and guided them into their ride home. Emma waited until the taxi drove off and the bouncer started back inside.

"Hey, kid." She startled at the unexpected sound. "What are you doing out here on the street alone at this hour of the night?"

* * *

"She wasn't abducted by Amazons, Dean." Sam's tone was patient. "You remember what it was like when Dad was overdue back from a hunt. Or from a bar," he couldn't help but add dryly.

"This is different," Dean argued. "She's on their radar."

"I was on Azazel's radar," Sam pointed out. "Dean, she's a kid. Kids get bored, they sneak out. You know that."

"So what am I supposed to do, sit here eating cold pizza and waiting for her to come back?"

"Well, it's either that or tear the town apart looking for her." Sam's sarcasm was lost on his brother. Dean slammed the door shut behind him.

Bodega Bay was barely a speck on the map, small even by small-town standards, just a scattering of homes and businesses along the coastal road. Almost all of the businesses were closed now, which at least limited the scope of his search. Emma wasn't at the all-night convenience store or the gas station. She wasn't on the beach. Dean was running out of options.

He parked on the street in front of a seedy-looking tavern, the only one still open at this hour. Maybe one of the local barflies had seen Emma. If nothing else, he could get a drink before continuing his search. Dean flipped open his cell phone as he walked in, preparing to show the only picture he had of the teenager, the one he'd taken of her to complete her forged learner's permit.

Emma was sitting at a table near the door, a glass, mostly empty, in front of her. She couldn't stop herself from flinching, just a tiny bit, when she saw her father catch sight of her. His face changed from worried to stony in an instant. That cool, calm, intimidating look. Emma lifted her chin and did her best to mirror his expression.

"Really, Emma Jo? A dive bar?"

He might have said more, but turned at the soft sound of footsteps behind him. Emma watched the bar's bouncer extend a meaty hand. He was taller than her father, not quite as tall as Sam, but easily a foot wider. Her dad took a moment to assess the big man, then accepted the handshake.

"You must be Emma's dad. I'm T.J. Told the kid it was better to wait for you inside, 'stead of out in the fog and damp."

"Yeah. Thanks for looking out for her, man."

Emma felt her face heat up. She'd thought she'd been humoring the kind-hearted bouncer when he asked her to wait inside, but her dad clearly believed she'd found herself a babysitter. That was humiliating. So far, the confrontation with her father was going even worse than she'd imagined it would.

"Whiskey. Make it a double," she heard him say to the bartender. "And another Shirley Temple." She watched him fiddle with his phone as he waited, no doubt sending a text to Sam. Dean brought the drinks back to the table. Sitting down across from her, he took a sip before pinning her with a glare.

"So you couldn't let me know where you were? Send a text? Leave a goddamn post-it note?"

It took all her Amazon training not to flinch again as his voice growled lower with each query. Emma forced herself to take a sip from her own syrupy sweet drink in spite of her stomach's protesting lurch.

"Sorry if I interrupted your hunt. I know you're busy with more important things. Like looking for Annie," she added, sullen.

"We found Annie. Gave her a hunter's funeral pyre, like she would've wanted." The words hit Emma as if he'd physically struck her.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice small, but Dean shook his head.

"Annie was a colleague. A friend. And yeah, it hurts like hell to lose another friend. But you're family, Emma. You and Sam…" She heard her father swallow hard. "Nothing means more to me. Nothing. It would kill me to lose you."

"I'm sorry," she repeated, feeling the prickle of tears at the back of her eyelids. Emma stared down at the polished wooden tabletop, pretending fascination with the irregular white rings left by former patrons' glasses, at the scratches that marred the shiny surface. She couldn't meet her father's gaze, not with those shameful tears threatening to fall. Not when she could hear the break in his voice, see that tell-tale brightness mirrored back at her from his eyes.

"I won't sneak out again. I promise."

"Yeah, you will." He chuckled, a sound so unexpected Emma looked up at him, startled.

"I won't. I'm sorry-"

"Shut up. You're sorry… Now," her dad said, without heat. "But you'll get bored, you'll get antsy. You'll get pissed off at being left behind," he went on, silencing her with a look when she opened her mouth to protest.

"Believe it or not, I know how you feel. I snuck out when I was a kid. So did Sam. I get it. I can't keep you cooped up in a motel room all the time."

"So let me come with you! Let me help," Emma said, louder than she'd intended, hating to see this tired, worn down side of her father. It was even worse, somehow, than his anger.

"I'll try. But you've got to meet me halfway." He took another drink. "You may be sixteen, but I haven't actually had sixteen years to perfect the whole father routine."

"It is kind of weird," Emma conceded.

"Yeah, well, we're Winchesters. Weird is what we do."


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's note: Credit where credit is due! This chapter relies heavily on action and dialogue taken from a script written by Robbie Thompson._

_Thank you to those who have followed, favorited, and reviewed. I can't begin to express how encouraging it is to know people are reading this story._

* * *

Emma sat at one end of the sagging leather sofa in Rufus Turner's old cabin, scrolling through a website dedicated to local history. Sam came into the room and sat down on the other end of the couch.

"I can't see any pattern to these dig sites."

"Yeah, 'cause they got nothing in common," Dean replied, frustrated. He came over and sat on the arm of the sofa.

"We've got nothing from local lore fifty miles in every direction of all of them," he added, gesturing to the laptop Emma had been working on. "I mean, it's like they're just old dirt. What's Dick looking for?" He drew his flask from a pocket and took a drink. The lights began to flicker.

The brothers were on their feet in an instant, guns drawn. Emma set the laptop aside and scrambled up, instinctively positioning herself behind Sam. Almost as quickly as they'd gone on the alert, the brothers relaxed, leaving Emma bemused as her dad spoke to the empty space in front of the cabin door.

"So how does this work, huh? I leave the cap off and you just genie your way out?" But it seemed there was no answer to his questions.

"Bobby?" Sam called. He and Dean looked around the room, searching for the ghost.

Emma looked too, though so far she hadn't seen anything except the flickering of the electric lights. She knew all about Bobby Singer, the hunter who'd been like a second father to her dad and his brother. The leader of the Leviathans, Dick Roman, had killed him, back before she'd been born, but they'd recently found out that Bobby had dodged his reaper. He'd remained behind as a ghost in spite of the hunter's send-off the Winchester brothers had given him, his spirit tied to the old flask her dad carried.

As Emma watched, Dean and Sam turned again, this time facing toward the kitchen.

"Well, you've been pretty busy for a dead guy," her father commented, replying to a voice she couldn't hear.

"Bobby's here?" Emma said, feeling stupid for asking, but she didn't see so much as a wisp of spectral vapor.

"He's here," Sam confirmed.

"Is he, um, angry?" she asked nervously.

She knew the lore. If a person lingered too long as a ghost, they went mad. Bobby had been a good guy when he was alive. One of the best, to hear her dad tell it, but it was only a matter of time before he became a vengeful spirit. Emma figured there was only one reason why her father and Sam hadn't burned the flask and banished Bobby's ghost. The same reason why they hadn't killed her, back in Seattle. She and Bobby were family.

There was another reason the unseen presence of the ghost worried her. Bobby was a hunter. Emma had been warned over and over by her father never to let any other hunters know she wasn't fully human. But Bobby must know. He'd been around, haunting Dean and Sam, since before she was born. Would he accept her? Or was she just another monster to him?

Sam shook his head, smiling.

"He says hi," he reported with a chuckle.

"...And?" Emma prompted. Sam's expression was amused, her dad's, uncomfortable. Watching the play of emotions on the brothers' features, she knew the ghost must have more to say than simply 'hi'.

"It's okay, Emma, he knows you're family," Sam reassured her. "And now he's calling Dean an idiot-"

"Enough with the play by play," her dad groused. "What was with those numbers you gave us?" he asked in the direction of Rufus' ancient refrigerator. "The empty lot in Cheeseville?"

It was strange listening to the conversation, like eavesdropping on one end of a phone call. Sam grabbed the laptop in response to something Bobby said, typing in a new web address and bringing up the site of some sort of biotech lab. He frowned as he looked at the innocuous-seeming web page.

"Don't you think that's a little bold, even for Dick?" Dean, like Emma, was reading over Sam's shoulder.

"What's bold? What's going on?" she asked, but Dean and Sam were both intent on whatever the ghost was telling them. Sam motioned for her to be quiet.

She fidgeted impatiently, watching them grow more worried and agitated. Emma was about to ask again when the laptop Sam was holding chimed.

"It's an e-mail," he said, clicking to open it. "From Frank."

"Frank's alive?" Dean and Emma said in unison.

"'Sam and Dean, if you're reading this, I'm dead_,'_" Sam read aloud.

* * *

"He's sitting next to me?" Emma frowned at the empty space beside her in the back seat. They had all piled into the car for the cross-country drive to Chicago to try and retrieve Frank Deveraux's hard drive-with all its incriminating information about the Winchesters-from Richard Roman Enterprises. Thanks to the flask Dean carried, the ghost of Bobby Singer had ridden along too.

"I know we aren't exactly normal, but the whole haunted back seat thing is kind of creepy, even by our standards. No offense," Emma added in the general direction of the phantom passenger. Bobby Singer was a friend, but still, sharing the seat with a spectral being was disconcerting.

Dean parked the car at the side of a former industrial building converted to loft apartments in a gentrified neighborhood. They'd driven through the night to locate a young woman named Charlie Bradbury, the Roman Enterprises employee who was working on breaking into Frank's hard drive.

"Let me talk to her first," Emma pleaded. She'd been thinking about the best way to approach the civilian as they drove east. Thanks to Frank Deveraux, they now knew quite a bit about Charlie Bradbury.

"I could say I'm collecting for some animal charity," she offered now.

"Good pretext," Sam agreed, but Dean grunted disapproval.

"Uh-uh. What if the Leviathans already replaced her with one of their own?"

"I can handle a Levi-" Emma began.

"Bobby has a point," Sam interrupted. It was clear from the brothers' reactions that the fourth occupant of the car was weighing in with his opinion. Dean gave a reluctant nod.

"If you carry the flask with you, you'll have Bobby for back-up," Sam told Emma.

She addressed the empty seat next to her.

"Thanks, um, Uncle Bobby."

"And Sam and I will be close by," Dean added.

"Thanks, Dad," Emma beamed.

By the time Charlie Bradbury pulled up to the apartment building on her bright yellow scooter, Emma had her disguise: an SPCA donation can Dean had stolen off the counter of a nearby convenience store. Her pulse sped up as the young woman walked through the front door, disappearing inside the building.

"Knife?" Dean demanded. Emma opened her jacket, revealing the Amazon blade tucked into her sleeve.

"Borax?" Obediently, she produced a small plastic bottle, the kind that normally held breath spray. The mint-flavored product had been replaced with sodium borate, courtesy of Sam.

"And I've got the flask right here," Emma said, interrupting her father's checklist.

"Okay. You're up. Sam and I-"

"Will be right behind me. I know, Dad." Emma smiled reassuringly at him. "I can handle this."

* * *

The long hallway leading to Charlie Bradbury's apartment was clean and brightly lit, a stark contrast to the last time Emma had stalked a corridor carrying her Amazon blade concealed in her sleeve. That had been the gloomy, run-down hotel in Seattle where she'd confronted her father. She could still remember the turmoil of her thoughts. Kill Dean Winchester, and complete her initiation into the tribe? Or plead for mercy and understanding from a stranger? A hunter, who might see nothing but a monster when he looked at her?

Emma shook off the memory. Her dad might have seen a monster at his door that night, but he'd also seen a daughter. And now here she was, a hunter herself, or at least in training to be one, and this time, she knew exactly what she would do when she knocked on Charlie Bradbury's door. This time, she wasn't alone, either. She slid a hand into her jacket pocket and touched the flask.

"You with me, Uncle Bobby?" Emma breathed, the whisper mingled with a chuckle at the absurdity of her query. Even if the ghost was speaking to her, she couldn't hear him.

A framed print hanging on the wall seemed to shift as she passed. She paused, looking at it critically. It was definitely crooked, a minor flaw, but out of place in the tidy, well-maintained building.

"Bobby?" Maybe they could communicate after all. The picture shifted back, level once more. Emma grinned.

"I've got this under control, Uncle Bobby, but I'm glad you're here."

Reaching the civilian's apartment, she knocked, holding her donation can in front of her. Emma imagined the woman peering through the security peephole and smiled innocently.

"Hi! My name is Emma and I'm collecting for the SPCA," she chirped brightly as the door cracked open. Charlie Bradbury looked wary. Her eyes shifted, left and right, up and down the hallway. It was more than suspicion, Emma realized. The woman was afraid.

"Sorry. I don't really have time for this," she began, but Emma just cranked her smile up a notch.

"Won't take a minute. Just a quick donation, whatever spare change you have lying around to help cute little puppies and kittens," she wheedled.

"I really can't- _Uhn_!" She made as if to shut the door in Emma's face, but it didn't budge. Uncle Bobby, Emma thought, grateful for the assist.

"Okay, fine. For the puppies," the civilian huffed. She retreated into the apartment, leaving the door open behind her. Emma followed her inside, taking in a quick impression of a neat, cheerful space decorated with… Children's toys? The teen shook her head, focusing her attention on Charlie.

The woman really was frightened, she saw as she fumbled in an oversized purse for some money. Emma decided it was time to drop the pretext.

"Look, I know you're scared. I know why," she went on as Charlie looked up at her, eyes wide. "I'm here to help you."

Charlie turned to face Emma fully. If anything, the teen thought, she looked terrified instead of reassured. Then Emma realized she was looking over her shoulder. She turned to see her dad in the doorway.

"It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you," he began, but Charlie whirled, grabbing a toy sword from a display stand. Dean moved into the apartment, followed closely by Sam.

"Get away from me, you shapeshifter!" Charlie stabbed Emma's uncle with her plastic sword, which promptly broke in half.

"Jeez!" Sam protested.

"They're not Leviathans!" Emma interjected as Dean tugged the broken pieces out of Charlie's hands.

"We're not, okay? You want us to prove it? You know what borax does to them?" Her dad pulled a bottle of cleaning solution out of his coat pocket.

"Yeah," Charlie said slowly, still looking wild-eyed and frightened in spite of their reassurances. Dean poured cleanser on Sam's and Emma's outstretched hands, then his own. Charlie began to calm down as the liquid splashed harmlessly.

"Your turn," Emma's father insisted, showing his trademark paranoia. Charlie took the bottle and poured some borax over her own hand, demonstrating her human status.

"Who the hell are you guys?" she demanded.

Emma spoke up.

"This is my uncle," she introduced Sam, "and this is my dad. They're basically superheroes."


	13. Chapter 13

"So you travel around the country with those guys and hunt monsters."

"Uh-huh." Emma was sitting at a vanity table in Charlie's bedroom, watching her pack. Sam was in the dining room going over plans on his computer and Dean had gone out to pick up supplies, presumably taking the flask and Bobby's ghost with him. The teenager resisted the urge to chuckle, imagining Charlie's reaction if she found out the Winchesters traveled with their own personal poltergeist.

Overall, Charlie Bradbury was handling the knowledge of the supernatural really well, Emma thought. She'd kept up a stream of complaints as she selected items to stuff in her bag, but Emma could understand her need to vent. In a few hours she'd gone from having a normal life to preparing for life on the run from the Leviathans.

"So I guess your mother is out of the picture, huh?" Charlie asked as she opened a dresser drawer and sifted through the contents.

"Yeah."

"That's tough," Charlie said, sympathetic.

"Mm," Emma murmured, noncommittal. There really wasn't much to say about her mother, not without venturing into forbidden territory. In a way, though, Charlie reminded Emma of her mom. She was probably only a few years older than Lydia, and even bore a superficial resemblance to her. Slender, pale-skinned, though Lydia's hair had been the same strawberry-blonde color as Emma's. Emma couldn't hold back a giggle at the thought of her mother sporting Charlie's vivid shade of red. Lydia would not have approved.

Her mother wouldn't approve of Charlie's taste in decor, either, Emma thought. Posters, stuffed animals, figurines… Things Emma's upbringing with the tribe had taught her were frivolous, reserved for little children. Idly, she tapped a bobblehead on Charlie's vanity, making the head wobble back and forth. An assortment of makeup was scattered across the top of the little dressing table along with the collection of figures.

"You can use it, if you want," Charlie offered, noticing Emma's interest in the compacts. "I won't be taking that stuff. Got to travel light," she said philosophically.

Emma laughed ruefully.

"I wouldn't know what to do with it," she confessed. Lydia had worn makeup, Emma remembered, but she'd been five when she'd left her mother's house, too young even for lip gloss. And during her training as an initiate of the tribe there'd been no time for vanity, even if the matrons would have allowed it.

"Come on, you're what, sixteen? You're allowed. Your dad's not ultra-religious or something, is he?"

"Um, no, not really." She had to stifle a louder laugh at that. Her dad had been to heaven. Hell, too. Dean had once counted an angel as his best friend, but Emma didn't think any of that made him particularly religious.

"Want me to show you how?" At the teenager's hesitant nod Charlie approached and pulled up a small upholstered storage cube. Taking a seat on it, she selected a tube of lipstick and handed it to Emma.

"Try that."

Emma peered into the mirror, frowning as she inexpertly dabbed the color onto her lips. She caught Charlie's eye in the reflection and the hacker chuckled at her serious expression.

"You're doing fine. Pucker up, like this," Charlie advised, demonstrating. "It's not supposed to induce angst. And we're not buying into that mainstream media impossible beauty ideal crap, okay? Makeup is just, you know, fun."

She reached for a brush and a compact. Emma let her apply blush to her cheeks, reasoning that Charlie could probably use a break from thinking about Dick Roman and his Leviathans. And it _was_ fun, spending time with a woman for a change, doing something overtly feminine. The makeup lesson was like something a mother would offer. Or an older sister, Emma corrected herself, mentally shying away from any more thoughts of Lydia.

"Do you ever get scared?" Charlie asked her quietly as she worked on her eye makeup. "I mean, monsters must be commonplace for you, huh?"

Emma's eyes were closed, but she could picture the redhead's expression. She could picture the first Leviathan she'd ever seen, too. That gaping maw filled with razor-sharp fangs and obscene, wriggling tongues. The first demon she'd ever seen. Its death throes as her dad stabbed it. The shining black eyes of the demon she'd fought. The crumpled, broken body of the innocent victim the demon had possessed.

"No, I do get scared, sometimes. We all do," admitted, cautiously opening her eyes to look at Charlie. "But it's our job, so we get it done. Focus on the ones you save," she told her solemnly, repeating her dad's advice.

"Yeah." Charlie nodded, decisive. "I just have to get the job done."

* * *

"Come on, Emma. You're riding with me."

Emma felt a weight of disappointment press down on her at her father's words. There could only be one reason for not letting her ride along in the cargo van with Sam. Her dad must be planning to drop her off somewhere. Somewhere safe, she thought bitterly. It seemed he would never trust her with anything important. With an effort, she kept her expression neutral.

"So, what, I'm on babysitting detail?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah. I need you and Bobby to sit this one out." Dean took out the old, leather-bound flask and handed it to her. Suppressing a sigh, she pocketed it. Arguing in front of Charlie would just make her look childish. Emma turned to the hacker.

"Good luck. I know you'll be great," she told her, forcing a smile.

"Thanks." To Emma's surprise, Charlie flung her arms around her, giving her a quick, impulsive hug. Then she followed Sam to the cargo van. Emma slid into the passenger seat of her father's car, riding quietly until they reached an intersection and the two vehicles went their separate ways.

"How is this meeting me halfway?" she demanded, throwing his words from their last argument back at him.

"Look, if this goes as planned, it'll be a couple of boring hours sitting in the van doing nothing," Dean retorted. "You won't be missing out on much."

"And if things go south? What then?"

"Then you get away. Call Garth-"

"I know! Call Garth!" Emma broke in. "I know the escape plan, Dad! I want to know what you're going to do if Charlie gets caught. You can't go in after her," she pointed out. The Leviathans all knew Dean and Sam Winchester. They wouldn't make it past the lobby.

"She won't get caught."

"But if she does?" Emma prompted, stubborn.

"If she does, Sam and I will go in after her," Dean said gruffly, equally stubborn.

And they would, too, Emma knew, even knowing it was hopeless. They'd die trying to save an innocent woman. She huffed out a sigh, shooting her father an exasperated look.

"I could help-"

"Emma Jo, there is only one thing you can do to help tonight," he growled, "and that's obey orders!"

Emma fell silent. It was the same old argument, one she could never win. The tribe had demanded obedience too, but she'd rebelled. That wasn't an option with her father. She didn't have the knowledge or the experience to strike out and fight the Leviathans on her own. And anyway, she'd made her dad a promise. Even if he didn't believe she'd be able to keep her word.

"You don't have to worry, Dad. I know how to obey orders."

It wasn't until Emma had flopped down across the bed in the airport hotel room, resigned to a night of boredom and worry, that she realized the flask wasn't in her pocket.

"Son of a bitch, Bobby," she muttered. Even the ghost had ditched her.

* * *

The buzz of her cell phone woke her a couple of hours later. Embarrassed, Emma realized she'd dozed off in spite of everything.

"Meet me in the lobby in five." Her father's voice was calm, but Emma immediately tensed. Had there been a change in the plan? Had something gone wrong?

"I'll be right down," she said, already heading for the door.

Emma didn't bother to wait for the elevator. She took the stairs three and four at a time, arriving in the lobby with three minutes to spare. Her father strode in carrying a bulky gray plastic case.

"This is what that Dick's been digging for," he said with a humorless smirk, passing the case to her.

"What is it?" Emma breathed.

"No idea, but if he wants it so bad-"

"No way he's getting his hands on it," she said firmly, clutching the handle tightly.

"That's my girl." This time, Dean's smile was fleeting but genuine. "If things go bad…" he paused, engaging in a brief, internal struggle. He reached out a hand and clasped her shoulder.

"You know what to do."

At least he hadn't felt the need to repeat the familiar instructions.

"I know what to do," Emma reassured him. She remembered Charlie's impulsive hug from earlier, and for a moment Emma was tempted to wrap her arms around him. The moment passed and her dad stepped back. A few seconds later, he was gone.

Emma carried the case up to the rented room. Fingers poised on the latches, she hesitated. Her father hadn't said anything about opening it. He'd never said not to open it, either, she reasoned. She raised the lid, pulled back the cloth wrapping, and frowned in puzzlement at the featureless lump of… Cement? Clay? It didn't look important at all.

Whatever it was, Emma hoped it was worth it. The Winchesters could use a break for a change.


End file.
